Tales of Shakespeare the Bard

For anyone that knows me knows I have a deep and abiding love for Shakespeare. What can I say he just makes me giddy. I have loved him since sixth grade when I was first introduced to his stories and this love has just grown. I loved teaching Shakespeare, it was my favorite time of the school year. I loved making his stories accessible to others.  About five years ago I decided that I wanted to see every one of his stories preformed before I die, lucky for me the Utah Shakespearean Festival decided last year that they are going to preform all 38 plays in his canon in the next twelve years. This served me well, seeing as I really only had the more obscure stories left to see. 

So this year I was a lucky girl and got to take two trips down to USF. The first was with my good friends, we had a delightful overnight trip to the festival to see King John (my first viewing) and Love's Labour Lost (my second viewing). 

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a week and a half later we took the whole family down so I could take Laine to her first Shakespeare show - The Tempest (my first time seeing it too) and the others could enjoy the Greenshow. We stopped at Popeye's on the way down. Yummy fried chicken!

And of course we grabbed dinner at The Pastry Pub, a favorite of all festival goers. 

We had some time to kill in between dinner and the greenshow so we took picture. My favorite picture at the festival is with Falstaff, what I can I say, I like that fat drunk man. I have had my picture with him for the last ten or so years, now the picture is much more than me, it has four little monkeys that like to climb all over it.

Christian, being upset that I had a Shakespearean 'boyfriend' decided he needed his own Shakespeare crush, not sure he picked the best one in Juliet.

My kids like the Lear statue though. I guess that is okay. 

The girls have started to take over my love for Shakespeare. They love the kids versions of the plays that I get them. They are being taught right and were okay showing their love by hoping on his lap.

Matty though wasn't quite sure about this man and why he was forced to sit by him. I think this one might need a bit more work before he thinks Shakespeare is awesome. 

Then it was time for the Greenshow and Tarts!!! The kids loved it.

I was sad to see they have changed the tarts. In fact I did not have one on this second trip down- a first for me. Those are usually my favorite treat so I have at least two every performance. None this time though for me. The kids still liked them though. I guess only having them one year is a lot different than eating them for thirteen years.

So right now I am sitting at 24/38 of the plays seen. Many of those being seen multiple times (I think As You Like it is the most seen with four viewing, Othello a close second with three). This fall I hope to knock off one more, taking me one step closer to my goal. I am just grateful that I have people to share this love with me and the oppertunity I have to share my love with them. 

Summer Vacation #2- Weekend Getaway

Since 1998 I have gone down to the Shakespeare's Festival in Utah. I missed two years during that time- the year I was on my mission and last year when Matty was born.   I was going to miss this year too, but my husband and kids talked me into taking them with me so I could go see Titus Andronicus. Now you may be wondering why I wanted to see that particular play, let's just say I want to see each of Shakespeare's plays before I die and this one has only been performed one other time since the festival started 51 years ago.  

So we bought our tickets, booked our hotel room, and next thing I knew it was time for Festival! 

Matty helped me pack this time- see he was making sure that the lid was on the hairspray, something that did not happen when we went to Heber. 

We took a quick dip when we got there and everyone had a ball. Then after a dinner at The Pastry Pub we headed over to the festival where we ate tarts to our hearts content. James ate three. 

 That night after the greenshow the kids and dad went back to the hotel and I watched the most disturbing incredible play I have ever seen.

Then next morning we went back and snapped some pictures. The kids loved the fountain.

 This is the Falstaff statue. I have a picture of me for almost every year we've been down sitting at this statue. The kids thought it was more fun to climb on him.

 So when I was looking through the Falstaff pictures, the Juliet pictures and the Lear pictures each one that I was holding him he had his hand down my shirt. Hmm, got to fix that one.

 The kids also thought the Shakespeare bench was awesome.

We stopped at Cove Fort on the second leg of our trip (Cedar City to Provo).  The kid had a ton of fun and we even beat the storm.

 We toured a part of the Fort I hadn't seen before, the kids thought it was awesome.

We got a picture snapped right as the rain started to pour. 

 We headed to Provo through the pouring rain and found our hotel and checked in. Though trying to find a place for dinner on Sunday in Provo turned out to be an epic quest.

The next morning we headed over to the Bradley Family Reunion at Seven Peaks. We had so much fun there and I was so grateful to grab a few shots that Christian's aunts took of our family.

 Then it was time to go home. It was a great fun family weekend. 

Shakespeare, Baby!

For those that don't hail from our part of the country, you might be interested to know that there is am annual Shakespearean Festival hosted in Cedar City, Utah (that's about 4 hours from anywhere and 2 hours from nowhere). Natalie and I headed down there this weekend to make sure that she got her yearly dose of thespian theatrics. The kids got to play with their grandparents (three sets of them) while we saw the plays.

First up was the classic ladies' favorite, Pride and Prejudice. Yeah, I know, not Shakespeare, but I'm not in charge of the festival. The performance was pretty good, only slightly ruined by the fourteen-year -olds sitting near us making gooey wimpy noises whenever Darcy and Lizzy held hands. I'd probably also change the casting of Lizzy, cause when Darcy talked about her not being handsome enough to tempt him, I was thinking "Yeah, I understand."

That evening we caught Macbeth. Nat was really excited because she's been teaching it for years and never had a chance to see it. The costumes were great, the swordfighting was exciting, and the guy playing Macbeth did a straight-up-awesome job of looking crazy. It was pretty much awesome all around.

Did I mention the tarts? The tarts are probably just about as good a reason to attend the festival as the plays. They had a killer mixture of blueberry and blackberry in one of them that they called Summerberry. I need to learn how to make those. The cream cheese ones were also stellar. The raspberry, lemon, and apple were tasty but didn't quite keep up with the other flavors. Following Natalie's tradition, we got a tart at the intermission of each play, plus a couple extra at the start of the festival or when we had some free time and apetite between plays.

The second day, we watch Much Ado About Nothing in the afternoon. I liked the live version better than the movie, there were some funny kids in that cast. Natalie still thinks Hero should have ditched Claudio, but I figure the poor kid meant well. Anyway, off to grab some barbecue (wouldn't recommend doing that again where we went) and back to see The Merchant of Venice. Shylock was great, and the crazy Macbeth guy was back again as Bassanio. I liked Portia, as she seemed to be the only character in the play who wasn't a complete jerk.

Anyway, if you haven't ever been (like I hadn't) and you happen to reside in the great state of Utah, I'd recommend taking a day or two and heading down to catch some shows.