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Summarized by Kent Larsen
LDS Theater Producer's Festival Wins Tony Award
Deseret News 8May00 A2
By Ivan M. Lincoln: Deseret News theater editor
CEDAR CITY, UTAH -- LDS theater producer Fred Adams' Utah
Shakespearean Festival was awarded a Tony award for the best regional
theater in the U.S. for 1999. The award, which will be presented
June 4th, validates the 39 years of effort put into making the
Festival one of the top Shakespearean festivals worldwide and a major
tourist attraction for Southern Utah.
The Festival was finally able to announce the award on Monday, May
8th after learning about it the week before. "We received word about
the award on Friday afternoon in a telephone call from Edgar Dobie,
managing producer of the Tony Awards production, but we couldn't say
anything about it until Monday morning, when the Tony nominations
were being announced at Sardi's Restaurant in New York City," said a
giddy Adams.
Officials at the Festival are pleased. R. Scott Phillips, managing
director of the festival said, "it's an incredible honor. It's like
we've reached the pinnacle of something that's both deeply profound
and very rewarding. All those years of struggling have paid off." And
the Festival hopes that the award will have a significant positive
impact on its bottom line. "I just got a call from the Los Angeles
Times," he said. "You can't buy that kind of publicity."
The award includes a medallion and a cash award of $25,000, which
Phillips says will probably be used for further expansion. Founded in
1961, the Festival has a long-running capital campaign that seeks to
create a $55 million Shakespearean Center for the Performing Arts
that will cover several blocks just off the campus of Southern Utah
University in Cedar City.
The Festival has also become a venue for workshopping plays by Mormon
playwrights, through its reading and playwright in residence
programs. Works by LDS playwrights Eric Samuelsen, Tim Slover and
others have been presented there, and LDS playwright Marianne Hales
Harding will be the Festival's playwright in residence for 2000.
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