How to Visit the Utah Shakespeare Festival in Cedar City
For over four decades the Utah Shakespeare Festival has delighted audiences with critically acclaimed productions encompassing the entire canon of theater, from Greek tragedy to the Elizabethan stage, from early French playwrights to the modern contemporaries. It has evolved into several performance stages and averages about ten productions during each summer season. The three-month season welcomes professional stage actors as well as talented students. Many patrons travel to see Shakespeare performed under the stars at Adams Shakespearean Theater. Supported by and adjacent to Southern Utah University, the festival is the pride of Cedar City, a town located an hour north of St. George and a couple hours west of Utah’s national parks, and located among picturesque cedar trees.
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Instructions
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Check online to see the theater schedule for the current season. You don't want to arrive on a night that’s dark, meaning no performances, so plan the trip accordingly. The Utah Shakespeare Festival makes an excellent excursion while visiting popular vacation destinations such as Zion and Bryce Canyon National Parks.
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Book hotel rooms well in advance. The festival is not only the pride of Cedar City, but Utah and the west as well. Dramaturgies and directors come from all over the world to participate. If no rooms are available, St. George, a Mecca for winter snow birds, offers a wide variety of accommodations. Note that reservations are recommended in St. George as well.
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Fly into Las Vegas International Airport, 170 miles to the south, and access Interstate 15 north toward St. George. Continue to Cedar City and Exit 59 or West 200 North Street. Follow directional signs to Southern Utah University. Cedar City is very easy to navigate.
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Fly instead into Salt Lake International, over 250 miles away, access Interstate 15 south toward St. George, and follow the aforementioned directions.
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Confirm accommodations and find a place to dine. Cedar City offers everything from fast food to established restaurants.
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Attend one of the afternoon seminars or orientations. The visitor need not be a literati or a thespian to spend some enlightening moments with professors of all things Shakespeare. This will make the play experience later on much more rewarding.
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Attend the pre-show or the Greenshow at the Adams Shakespearean Theater. Performers recreate street entertainment common to audiences of Renaissance Italy and Elizabethan England. Try the candy and other foodstuffs.
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Plan to attend at least one production at the Adams. Outdoor theater is best in a rural setting without emergency sirens and traffic noises.
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Spend a morning driving the 23 miles on State Highway 14 west and see Cedar Breaks National Monument, which offers only a sampling of the beauty the Utah Outback has to offer.
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