Company Spotlight: Bill Black and Samantha Allred

Bill Black, Costume Designer

Have you ever worked at the Festival before? I
This is my 24th summer season.  I have also done 5 Fall seasons.  I have designed costumes for almost 50 plays.

Where’s your home base?
Knoxville, Tennessee.  I am the associate head of the Theatre Department at the University of Tennessee and the resident costume designer for the Clarence Brown Theatre Company - a LORT theatre in residence on the campus.

What’s your education/training background?
I have an MFA in costume design from the University of Illinois in Champaign/Urbana.

What brought you to your field and what keeps you doing your craft?
Like many folks in the theatre I started as an actor - at age 4.  I have always been an artist and sewing and clothing have been avenues of expression for me.  Being a costume designer is a perfect combination of actor, artist, and sewing.  I get to play all the parts in the play in my head while I’m designing the clothes.  The sketches are my art and the making of the costumes feeds my need to create clothes.

How will you spend your time off while here?
Seeing the beautiful sights that are part of the charm of Southern Utah - hiking and touring in nature.

What does the Festival Experience mean to you?
It’s been the highlight of my year every year for the past 24!  While I love what I do the rest of the year, my time here renews and refreshes me.  I feel like part of a family of artists whose spring and summer home is here.  I always feel like I’m coming home when I arrive here in May.

If it applies, do you have a favorite memory of working in the Adams Theatre?
The first dress rehearsal of my first production (The Merry Wives of Windsor) in 1992.  I rained all afternoon and just before time for the rehearsal to begin the rain stopped and there was a spectacular rainbow over the theatre.  We had a lovely dress rehearsal and I knew at that moment I was someplace I was supposed to be.

If you could be a superhero, what would you want your superpowers to be?
Making shoes fit anyone who put them on.

If you had a time machine, where would you like to visit?
Elizabethan Stratford upon Avon - that sounds corny but I mean it.

Samantha Allred, Actor

Have you ever worked at the Festival before?
Last year was my first year with the festival in which I was in the Greenshow, I was ensemble in Sense and sensibility and Rapunzel in Into the Woods.

Where’s your home base?
I most recently am from Cedar city where I am finishing up school at Southern Utah university.

What’s your education/training background?
By December of this year I will have my Bachelor’s in Fine Arts in Musical Theatre From SUU.

What brought you to your field and what keeps you doing your craft?
Well I have always loved theatre but once I got to college I found myself in the music program because I guess I thought it was more sensible. I was there for two years when in the spring if 2012 I was diagnosed with stage 2 cancer called Hodgkins Lymphoma. I immediately dropped school and underwent 6 months of intense chemotherapy. during that time though I discovered that life is really only worth living if you are doing what you really love, so I changed to theatre and haven’t looked back. I am now happy to report that I am happy and healthy and all doing what I love!

How will you spend your time off while here?
I love physical exercise so anything that has to do with that. I also love to keep my hands busy by doing crafts like crochet, or painting or drawing. Um I’m also reading Harry Potter for the first time this summer. I’m on book 3. Yay me.

What does the Festival Experience mean to you?
The festival experience means more to me than almost anything in the world. Starting as an audience member myself coming in the summer and see the festival from the outside with hopes to one day be in a show that is as beautiful and flawless as ones they put on. Then seeing my dream become a reality and knowing the kind of impact we are making as members of this company is one of the greatest achievements I have ever done.

Also knowing that our patrons are getting to be a part of much more than one or two single plays, but knowing they have 6 plays to choose from and talk backs and seminars and meet and greets and so much more is so satisfying as a member of this company.

If you could be a superhero, what would you want your superpowers to be?
Oh man…. um I’d like to slow down and freeze time. This is because you can pretty much accomplish many other super hero powers with this one power. You can, of course,  freeze time but you can travel super fast because of it (no time at all) you can be invisible because no one will see you come or go. You can beat just about anyone because they can’t fight someone who is super fast and I would just love not having to waste time getting from one place to another.

If you had a time machine, where would you like to visit?
Probably Rome in the prime of its reign. (: just because it’s very cool. Or maybe Jerusalem in Christ’s time because how freaking interesting would that be.

Company Spotlight: Tajh Oates and Brandon Burk

Tajh Oates, Junior Carpenter

Have you ever worked at the Festival before?
Nope. This is my first year.

Where’s your home base?
Statesboro, GA

What’s your education/training background?
I am a rising senior pursuing a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre at Georgia Southern University. I also spent last summer as the Carpentry Intern at Westport Country Playhouse in Westport, Connecticut.

What brought you to your field and what keeps you doing your craft?
In middle school, my parents pushed me to find a new extra-curricular activity, so I started doing theatre. I started acting, but when I didn’t get cast in a show, I asked what I could do to help out. Ever since then, I realized how much fun and enjoyment that comes from doing tech theatre. There’s always a sense of accomplishment, and the people that you are around are some of the craziest, friendliest, non-judgemental people you could ever be around. It’s also one of the only fields where everything you do is different. There’s never a boring time in a theatre.

How will you spend your time off while here?
Brotank Volleyball. It’s a thing. Also, I’ve heard that hiking and camping is a big thing here, so I would like to try that out.

What does the Festival Experience mean to you?
It means several things. It’s professional experience. It’s learning new tricks and skills from others. It’s getting to be a part of something bigger. It’s getting to know and learn from professionals in this industry, and not just in my field. And overall, it means that I get to join a family that I can be a part of forever.

If you could be a superhero, what would you want your superpowers to be?
I really want cryokinesis, or ice powers. I just think it’d be really cool and versatile.

If you had a time machine, where would you like to visit?
The 1920s. I love the cultural changes and newfound freedoms of the period. Also, I just want a reason to where a fancy tux all the time.

Brandon Burk, Actor

Have you ever worked at the Festival before?
This is my first year as a company member, but I have visited the Festival many times as a patron from Las Vegas.  The Festival has always held a special place in my heart and it means a lot to me to actually be a part of it this year.

Where’s your home base?
I have lived in Nevada, primarily Las Vegas, for the last 10 years.  However, I moved to Los Angeles permanently just one week before I arrived in Cedar City.

What’s your education/training background?
I have a BA in Theatre from Indiana University of Pennsylvania and an MFA from the UNLV Professional Actor Training Program.  I’ve been involved with theatre since I was 6, and most recently served as Artistic Director for a theatre company and venue in Las Vegas for 2 and a half years.

What brought you to your field and what keeps you doing your craft?
I was influenced at a young age by my grandmother. She was a visual artist, competed in pageants, and an avid supporter of the arts.  I attended theatre productions with my mother and her growing up and was hooked from the very beginning. My grandmother encouraged and even coached me at times. She helped me get over stage fright and gave me confidence. Today I am passionate about the craft because I see the effect live theatre can have on an audience member that no other art form can. I love being a part of that.  Theatre can change and open people’s minds, give them experiences and emotions that they don’t get in their daily lives, make people laugh or cry or gasp aloud.  And we as performers not only get be a part of it, but we get to experience it right then and there.  It’s immediate. It’s exciting. It lives and breathes in a way a painting or a film cannot, because we are directly connected.  Every show could be some audience member’s first. There’s nothing like it in the world.

How will you spend your time off while here?
Mostly running and writing.  I am currently working on a one man show in conjunction with the Theatre Department at High Point University that we hope to workshop in the spring.  While we are very busy here at the festival, I see it as a perfect opportunity to get some writing done.  There aren’t many more exciting and inspiring places to me than Cedar City in the summer time.

What does the Festival Experience mean to you?
The Festival Experience is more than just seeing a play or even a season of plays.  The Festival Experience is an energy that surrounds this entire town all summer long (and into the Fall).  It’s the energy that only comes from being surrounded by like-minded enthusiasts and practitioners.  Many of our patrons may be coming from areas that do not have a strong theatre community.  For them, this can be a reminder of the power and longevity that theatre has.  And here, patrons and artists and technicians can directly interact.  We form a community.  It’s more than a performer/audience relationship.  We hold a weekly cabaret, there are educational programs and backstage tours.  We are all sharing a passion with one another, and that’s exciting.

If you could be a superhero, what would you want your superpowers to be?
My super power would be to not have to sleep.  Think of how much more we could accomplish!

If you had a time machine, where would you like to visit?
Goodness, I hope I don’t have to pick just one.  I would love to be around for the conception of all of the great establishments and organizations we know today.  I would make a sort of tour out of visiting the times when the great books were being written, or the U.S. was in it’s infancy stage, or the first time Shakespeare put on a play.  Even the beginning of the Utah Shakespeare Festival.  What an exciting time that must have been, to be a part of something so special, and to have no idea what it would eventually become.

Company Spotlight: Luke Johnson and Christine Casper

Luke Johnson, Actor/Guest Services/Company Management

Have you ever worked at the Festival before?
Yes, this will be my third year. I have worked in House Management and Ticket Office, and now as an actor and in Company Management.

Where’s your home base?
West Valley City, UT

What’s your education/training background?
I have one year left in my undergraduate training for a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Musical Theatre.

What brought you to your field and what keeps you doing your craft?
My older siblings dabbled in theatre and I saw all their shows growing up, so I always had a love for the theatre. Once I had the chance to perform myself, I took it; in concerts, plays, even playing pretend. Performing became an escape for me, from anxiety and insecurity; a safe vehicle for catharsis.

I love contributing to the creation of a new world with real characters and a compelling story.

An analogy: picture humanity as a pyramid. At the top of the pyramid, in the smallest portion, are the geniuses, inventors, and creators capable of original thought and pure inspiration.

At the bottom of the pyramid are the average Joes, the everyman, the common populace who inhabit and fill the world.

In the middle are the artists, storytellers, and performers. Their function is to transcend the top and bottom levels to bridge the gap, bringing the creative substance of the geniuses to the rest of the world.

That’s why I love what I do.

How will you spend your time off while here?
Sleeping. Haha! No, I love to spend time around all the beautiful nature that is so close to us. Hiking, biking, playing in the park, even just reading a book. Also, I love to spend time with the people I meet and the friends I make.

What does the Festival Experience mean to you?
The Festival Experience means artistic edification. It gives you the chance to see a good array of shows across the board, while inviting you to really become a part of Festival yourself. It means magic is real. It means dreams do come true. Mine did.

If it applies, do you have a favorite memory of working in the Adams Theatre?
The Adams Theatre holds an intrinsic magic and wonderment. My favorite memory is a repeated one: seeing that magic fill the audiences night after night.

If you could be a superhero, what would you want your superpowers to be?
As a kid, I wanted to be Sticker Man, a hero of my own creation who could make stickers out of thin air. You’d be surprised how many uses stickers have in crime fighting, let alone decorating.

If you had a time machine, where would you like to visit?
I’d love to visit Ancient Greece and Rome. The philosophy, art, and culture is absolutely fascinating to me.

Christine Casper, Ticket Office

Have you ever worked at the Festival before?
This is my first year working for the festival.

Where’s your home base?
Dallas, TX

What’s your education/training background?
I am in my last year at SUU where I will be receiving a degree in Theatre Arts with a minor in Shakespeare Studies.

What brought you to your field and what keeps you doing your craft?
Everything comes back to theatre for me. No matter how many other things I tried, theatre is the only thing that stuck. It’s a beautiful thing when you have the opportunity to do what you love every day. Theatre is unique in that it develops as quickly as the human experience does and is a way of learning from each other.

How will you spend your time off while here?
I take long walks and hike whenever I can. That coupled with my hobby of iPhone photography makes for some lovely Instagram posts.

What does the Festival Experience mean to you?
I adore my friends and I have many who are performing in the shows this year. Seeing them onstage gives me some of the greatest joy I have ever known. Though I would like to work as a professional actor as well, their success means the world to me. The Utah Shakespeare Festival is a family. Anyone who works here can feel a sense of comradery in one way or another. I felt it even before I started working this year.

If it applies, do you have a favorite memory of working in the Adams Theatre?
I have not worked in the Adams Theatre for the festival yet.

If you could be a superhero, what would you want your superpowers to be?
Telekinesis would allow me to manipulate things with my mind. This way I could get whoever makes the fudge to make me all the fudge I wanted. Reading minds is also a plus.

If you had a time machine, where would you like to visit?
I would want to be in the audience for Broadway’s first ever opening night of “A Chorus Line.”  Nothing like that show had ever been done before, and the experience  would be indescribably meaningful to me as a performer.

King Lear Actor Blog

King Lear with Tony Amendola (Lear) and Kelly Rogers (Cordelia)

Tony Amendola as King Lear

Tony Amendola is back with the Festival, playing King Lear. He was last here as Shylock in The Merchant of Venice in 2010. Kelly Rogers is enjoying her first season here and plays Cordelia. She’s finding the Festival to be “like a Shakespeare fairyland." And is excited to be working with so many talented actors. Here are their thoughts on their roles in this many-layered play.

Tony, why do you think Lear decides to divide his kingdom?

Tony:      It’s simultaneously a wise and bad choice. That’s the mystery of it. There’s no real good answer. He is getting old, and he can sense the strife between the two older daughters. He thinks “Do this now and make it clear so there’s no strife in the future.”

Kelly, why do you think Cordelia refuses to say how much she loves her father?

Kelly:    I think she’s very thrown by that question. It’s safe to assume she still lives with Lear. She is watching him age. Tony has this great idea that I was brought up to be like him. I’m the son of the daughters. I went hunting with him. If we were out in the middle of a hunt and had just killed something together, that’s when I’d tell him that I loved him. Not in a ceremonious place with people holding crowns on pillows. I think Cordelia is just not used to that.  It’s just about how you love.

It’s not out of pride or rebellion. That’s how I have to rationalize it. I don’t like the idea of a Cordelia who’s just prideful. He has not taught her “the glib and oily art.” I feel the pressure of wanting to be honest. Honesty can be defined so many ways. I think Regan and Goneril feel their answers are true as well. I have to tell you the truth here. This is the only answer I have.

Tony:      For Lear, in the human aspect, he’s late in life and he needs to hear it. How many parents have been in the same situation?

Tony, talk to us about the “madness” in this play.

Tony:      It’s really about becoming a human being. He’s separated from power, separated from status. He becomes more human as he’s in jeopardy. As a ruler who’s been ruling forever he suddenly has epiphanies about social justice that Shakespeare could only put in the mouth of a mad person.

Kelly Rogers as Cordelia

Kelly, what’s your take on the father/child relationships in this play?

Kelly:     What I walk away with, even though Cordelia dies and Gloucester is blinded, there is some sort of catharsis. The children who were banished are redeemed and reconciled. And people fight for Lear. I fight with a sword in this play for my father. Edgar does as well. He kills Oswald. That redemption of fighting for the parent who has banished you – that love is so powerful and so moving for me. You gotta love your parents.  The patience of understanding – people get older. They get angry and scared as they approach death. The way to treat that is not with anger. You don’t throw them out into a storm. You take them in and you love them regardless. And you fight for them regardless.

King Lear opens in preview on June 27 and plays through September 4. You can purchase tickets online at www.bard.org or by calling 800-PLAYTIX.

You can learn more about this play and our production at http://www.bard.org/plays/2015/king-lear where you’ll find study guides, complete casting, costume designs and director interviews.

Company Spotlight: Vicki Smith and Anthony Simone

Vicki Smith, Set designer for the Adams theatre

Have you ever worked at the Festival before?
I was set designer for the Adams last season.

Where’s your home base?
Minneapolis

What’s your education/training background?
I was an art major as an undergraduate at Reed College.  I have two MFAs from the University of Washington, one in sculpture, one in technical theatre.  I was an intern for one season and then the associate set designer for two seasons at the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco

What brought you to your field and what keeps you doing your craft?
I’ve wanted to be a visual artist since I was a young child. After graduate school, I was a studio artist and found theatre by working on a clay animation film.  The sets were built by technical theatre students, so I decided to give that a try. I found I liked it better than sculpture for several reasons:  1) The audience actually knows what you’re talking about.  As a sculptor, I often felt I was talking to myself.  2) I love the research part of my job; it’s a constant surprise.  3) The final product is deeper than what I did as a sculptor, because it’s associated often with some of the best literature the western tradition has to offer and because it’s the collective product of many minds who think quite differently.  4) Theatre demands I do a lot of things that I don’t quite know if I can do, but I have to figure it out. Usually, that’s a good thing. 5) To my ongoing surprise, I’ve actually managed to make a living in theatre for 35 years, which I couldn’t really do as a sculptor.

How will you spend your time off while here?
Hiking, of course.

What does the Festival Experience mean to you?
It’s very intense and very ambitious in the scale of what the Festival does. Working in the Adams poses a different set of problems than I’ve ever worked with before:  generally, shape is a major element of set design, but working in the Adams means trying to make the space look and feel different for 3 very different shows without being able to significantly alter the shape.  It’s quite challenging.

If it applies, do you have a favorite memory of working in the Adams Theatre?
I am particularly fond of the automated tumbleweed we used in Comedy of Errors last season.  It may be the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen on stage in one of my shows - I even loved it when it broke down because it was so completely silly. Fortunately, that was absolutely in character with the show.   I had tears rolling down my cheeks a couple of times watching it make its cross.

Anthony Simone, Actor

Have you ever worked at the Festival before?
This is my 2nd year at the Festival-Last year I was Pompey inMeasure for Measure, Valentine/Officer in Twelfth Night and Ensemble in Sherlock Holmes.

Where’s your home base?
New York City, Manhatthan

What’s your education/training background?
I was originally a pre med major back in undergrad.  But after meeting my mentors Margaret and Peter Larlham by fate one day, in the midst of my Sophomore year, I decided to try double majoring.  And after graduating I took a year off before I was accepted into UC Irvine’s MFA Acting program.

What brought you to your field and what keeps you doing your craft?
As a child, I often would get lost in my imagination spending hours as an astronaut trying to explore new parts of the universe or roaming through the pride lands as Simba the mighty King. So as you can imagine I jumped at every chance to perform both at schools as well as church in plays, as I grew older I started to take more of a liking to singing and dancing.  

But, in terms of why I keep doing my craft? I would say it’s because I love the challenge(s) that every show presents as well as the things I constantly get to learn about myself and humanity as a whole.

How will you spend your time off while here?
I plan on spending time training for my first marathon - that I hope to run next year. (Wish me luck!)  I also plan to go hiking and taking in the beauty of the area. I’ll also be sleeping and trying to find my next job.

Do you have a favorite memory of working in the Adams Theatre?
I have two favorite moments with the Adams.

The first occurred the first time I walked onto the Adams stage, during rehearsal last year, and instantly felt butterflies in my stomach.  I was so moved, honored and terrified to be on the same stage as many great actors before.

The 2nd time was one night during Measure for Measure and it started to rain and the beauty of seeing the audience (who were being pelted with rain) stay still and fully invested in the show.  I walked off stage and was like - those are real troupers!

If you could be a superhero, what would you want your superpowers to be?
I’d want to be able to fly.  Or better yet stop time so I can finally catch up on all my Netflix videos and books I want to read.

If you had a time machine, where would you like to visit?
There are way to many but I’d love to see the first production of Shakespeare’s Cannon.

Festival Reunion Weekend Announced!

Come Back and Say Goodbye to our Dear Old Friend

All past employees of the Utah Shakespeare Festival are invited for a special reunion weekend to celebrate the closing of the Adams Shakespearean Theatre from August 13 - 15. Employees can get $4 off tickets that weekend with the coupon code: FONDFAREWELL.

There will also be a reception in the Adams Courtyard on August 15 after the evening shows. 

Amadeus Actor Blog

Amadeus – David Ivers (Salieri) and Tasso Feldman (Mozart)

Amadeus, winner of a Tony-award for best play and the academy award for best film, is a provocative, intriguing, beautifully breathtaking work by Peter Shaffer.  Overshadowed by the young Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, court composer Antonio Salieri struggles to escape his own obscurity. In his quest to be remembered, he lies and cheats. But against the background of the world’s greatest music, did he also murder?

Tasso Feldman (Mozart)

We were able to snag a few minutes with David Ivers, who plays Salieri and Tasso Feldman, who plays Mozart to discuss their views on this gripping and powerful play.

Tell us your thoughts about the play.

David: It’s an event, it’s like an opera in the sheer size and scale of the piece. The music is like the third lead. Peter Shaffer, constructs the play and text that work in harmony with Mozart’s music, it’s brilliant how music is woven in. There’s all this underscoring when certain events are being talked about.

And even though we have heard so many of these compositions by Mozart, in the play, Salieri is hearing them for the first time. That’s what so wonderful about it. That’s also what’s challenging.

Talk about the contrast in your character’s personalities?

Tasso:   He’s someone who doesn’t want to conform. Maturity is societal – it’s all about constraints. People say “you should behave.”  When you’re a newborn, you’re free, but society wants to snuff you out- sacrifice the child in us. People put you in a box. That’s what society is trying to do to Mozart. “Know your place.”  “You should be better behaved.” It’s constant. Mozart says “it’s all about my music. If I behave I lose the music.”

David Ivers (Salieri)

David:   Salieri made a bargain with God. If he served God and was rigorous in his virtue, then he would be blessed with the ability to serve mankind through his music. What he finds is that God touched somebody else, who wasn’t virtuous and doesn’t care about rigorously serving mankind, in Salieri’s opinion.

It’s not just that Salieri is jealous of Mozart’s talent. It’s that he possesses the ability to hear meticulously how brilliant it is. He says in the play, “I was born a pair of ears.” He understands from the composer’s point of view and to not be able to do that yourself…that’s why he feels “why not me?”

What are some discoveries you’re making with this play?

Tasso: The name Amadeus means to be loved of God and this play is about our relationship with the divine. Through Mozart’s musical talents he’s an open channel to God, essentially God’s voice into the world. 

David:  The idea of creating perfection inside of imperfection (and the reverse) is unsettling. Here Mozart can put God’s voice on paper, but when he opens his mouth it is not godlike.

It’s also an amazing case study in absolute convictions one way or the other. There’s something sinister about it. The play is packed with reactionary, emotional responses. Both characters share an emotional response to the universe. It’s thrilling.

Amadeus opens in preview on June 25 and plays through September 5.

You can learn more about the play, including complete cast, director interviews and costume designs at  http://www.bard.org/plays/2015/amadeus

You can purchase tickets at www.bard.org or 800-PLAYTIX.

Military Appreciation Days at the Utah Shakespeare Festival

Military Appreciation Days at the Utah Shakespeare Festival

Allie Babich as Ensign Nellie Forbush in the Utah Shakespeare Festival’s 2015 production of South Pacific.

The Utah Shakespeare Festival will be celebrating our Armed Forces on Saturday, July 4 by offering four free tickets for military personnel and their families to the opening performance of South Pacific at 2 p.m. The Festival appreciates the sacrifices of the men and women who serve and wants to recognize their dedication and commitment to this country.

The Festival will be proud to welcome Utah’s 222nd National Guard and any other active or inactive service personnel, as well as their families. A valid military ID is required.

One of the most beloved musicals of all time, South Pacific is a sweeping story of love threatened by the dangers of prejudice and war, all set to songs such as “Some Enchanted Evening,” Younger Than Springtime," and “Bali Ha’i.”

Additionally, military personnel are eligible to receive four free tickets to The Taming of the Shrew on August 13 at 2 p.m. and Charley’s Aunt on September 29 at 8 p.m.

The Taming of the Shrew portrays one of literature’s greatest screwball couples, Kate and Petruchio, hell-bent on confusing and outwitting each other—right up to the play’s hilarious, but revealing, final scene.

A quiet luncheon turns into a corset-busting masquerade in Charley’s Aunt, when two college chums go to great lengths to woo a pair of charming young ladies, including persuading their wacky friend to pose as an aunt from Brazil—where the nuts come from.

A valid military ID will be required to pick up the tickets, and there is a limit of four tickets per family per show.  Space is limited, so call soon to reserve your seats.  

The Glories of Playing Falstaff by John Ahlin

Chasing the Whale of a Man

Thank goodness for the petrified log, or I’d be the oldest thing in this picture.

BLOG # 1  Hello!

I begin this blog with a tribute to the granddaddy of electronic communications; the phone call.  These days a phone call is way down the list of ways to communicate, after text and blog and Twitter and Facebook and whatever else has been invented in the time it took me to type this sentence (I hear even emails are old fashioned now),  but once upon a time the phone call was it.  Mail, you know, the postman slogging through the sleet and dead of night thing, was how you got bills and letters (please refer to the history books to find out what a letter is), but to a years-ago young actor, pounding pavement in New York, the phone call presented infinite possibilities.  And you had to be by your phone, or have an answering service.  We didn’t realize we were inconvenienced by not having our phone in our back pocket.  Having the phone attached to the wall of our very immobile apartment building was just fine. The sardonic wit Dorothy Parker used to sneer upon hearing the phone ring; “What fresh Hell is this?”, but to an actor, the moments from the first ring until you answered was fantasy land.  “What career-changing for the better opportunity is this?”    Surely it’s the offer for a movie role long dreamed of, or some voice-over booking that will lead to riches, or an audition at a first class regional theater.  In those days phones just rang and didn’t display who or what was calling, so you truly did think big thoughts as you crossed the room, not knowing who was calling until they identified themselves.  And conversely if you were expecting a call about a callback, or an offer, a quiet phone was a ringing condemnation of your career.  Acting is the profession where you find out you didn’t get the job by silence…forever.  So an actor loves a phone call out of the blue.  And my fancy new Samsung Droid ringing (actually playing some tune called Meadow Sunrise), while sitting on a bench in St. Augustine, Florida, America’s oldest city, in mid-March of this year, filled me with that same “What fresh Heaven is this?” hope.  I was driving home from doing Shakespeare in Orlando, contemplating the fact that I was, at the moment unemployed for the entire rest of my life (ironically, an actor losing his job a lot means he’s working a lot) when it was Brian Vaughn, co-artistic director of the Utah Shakespeare Festival, calling with the opportunity to ascend the Shakespeare mountain again, this time in the heavenly state of Utah.  These are the phone calls that keep actors going.

My view of New York

I live 36 floors above the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood of New York City, so named because back over a century ago one particular block was so dangerous and hot that a rookie cop supposedly likened it to Hell, when a veteran cop corrected, saying it was hotter than Hell: it was Hell’s Kitchen.  It’s not so hellish anymore, but coming from there to Cedar City,Utah is what we used to call on the wrestling team a ‘reversal’.  I had been prepared for the heavenliness of Utah and the kindliness of Utahans (Utahns? Tahn Tahns?), having worked at the Pioneer Theater in Salt Lake City a year and a half ago; but, if possible, Cedar City is even more beautiful and the people even nicer.  Lovelier than Heaven, Cedar City is Heaven’s Back Porch.  And to be here for the first time, working on Shakespeare, with a company whose reputation I have long heard of, is, for this very veteran actor, a “pinch me” moment.

With all the breathtaking vistas of flying over the Rockies and the scenic drive from the diminutive St. George airport (where we arrived at Gate One), and the breathtaking thinness of the Cedar City fresh air, the thing that amazed me the most in my first days was to see how big and bustling the Utah Shakespeare Festival Company is.  I never cease marveling at how many people love to do Theatre, and how out of a group of hundreds I can never have met but one person (Brian Vaughn) and yet we all share the same passion and speak the same language.  I was immediately awash with the feeling of wanting to do my best, for the sake of this group, and help in any way I can.    

Hence this blog.  This first is just hello, so “hello”, but over the Summer I hope to share some of the insights and discoveries on being with the Festival and putting on the shows, from my point of view.  I work as a playwright as well as an actor, and the beauty part of playwriting is you are not shackled by grammar and sentence construction; you simply write as people speak.  Consequently, my prose here might be snaky, and my narrative meandering, but this is the benefit of living in the Blog Age.  You can post anything, whereas in the old days you had to get past editors and publishers, who insisted on higher quality.  So I hope not to abuse this freedom, and come up with something of modest interest.

Getting notes in rehearsal from Director Brian Vaughn

And foremost I hope to give some thoughts on playing what some might call Shakespeare’s greatest clown, Falstaff.  But I would disagree with that. Doesn’t Falstaff belong alongside Shakespeare’s greatest characters; Othello, Rosalind, Macbeth, Lear and Hamlet?  That is the question.  I hope to address that idea and also explore a mystery, that’s right a Shakespearean mystery involving Falstaff and Shakespeare, and what really happened way back then.  I may not find the answer but I want to play detective.  And by way of confession this will be my 11th Falstaff, but since there are 3 different plays in which he appears, I’ve mathematically only done each play three and a third  times, so I am not at the point of dragging out the same old tired performance.  On the contrary, playing Sir John Falstaff only gives me the glimpse of what a Universe this Globe of a Man is, spinning magnificently in the larger Universe of Shakespeare.  There is so much more and so much new to playing Falstaff, that, being here, now and exploring him anew, I can say I am as excited as any time in my long career.

Stay tuned for my next blog - # 2: Rehearsing.     

Playmakers Summer Shakespeare Open for Registration

Playmakers Summer Shakespeare Open for Registration

The thirteenth annual Playmakers Summer Shakespeare Program is now open for registration at the Utah Shakespeare Festival. This program is a wonderful opportunity for students to receive one-on-one training from theatre professionals and the Festival’s Education Director Michael Bahr.

The Playmakers Summer Shakespeare Program is for beginners and advanced students. Registration is open for youth 6-17 and is only $90. Classes run on weekdays from 1 to 3 p.m. from June 15 to 27.

Students can expect to learn Shakespearean scene work, songs and the essential building blocks for theatre performance. The workshop culminates in a performance of selected scenes and musical numbers handpicked based on individuals’ levels in the group. Included in the registration fee is a free ticket to see the Festival’s production of The Taming of the Shrew.

Playmakers was created by Bahr in 2002 as a way to extend the Festival’s educational offerings to the community year-round. Playmakers provides fundamental training in acting and performance skills. Teachers work with each student and adapt to their needs. Not only do students learn about theatre, but also about teamwork, problem solving and creative thinking.

Bahr commented, “Playmakers is designed to be diverse and flexible to the individual training needs for each student. It is accessible, affordable and we strive to achieve artistic excellence each summer.”

For more information or to register call (435) 865-8333 or email usfeducation@bard.org.