Utah Shakes

What a glorious day we had Wednesday at the Utah Shakespeare Festival in Cedar City! At 2 PM, we saw the matinee of Rodgers and Hammerstein's South Pacific. Neither of us had ever seen the show live, although we both knew the music (I can hear my mom playing "Some Enchanted Evening" on the piano.). The cast we saw included Michael Scott Harris as Emil de Becque and Allie Babich as Nellie Forbush; both were great, as was Christine Jugueta as Bloody Mary. Francis Parker alum Nicki Elledge appeared as one of the nurses. So much fun!

After dinner in town, we walked back to the Adams Theatre for Taming of the Shrew. This is the last year that Utah Shakes will perform in the Adams, so I was glad to be there one last time. Construction of a huge new theatre complex is well underway though, and promises another outdoor stage for Shakespeare productions. Shrew was very good, with real-life husband and wife team of Brian Vaughn  (channeling Kevin Spacey, I thought) and Melinda Pfundstein as Petruccio and Katherine, respectively, and fight choreography by my friend Chris DuVal. It's a tough play for a feminist to watch, but the wooing Katherine scene was worth the price of admission, and it's always fun to see Shakespeare's comedies -- all of them comedies of errors of identity and (mis)understanding. Plus, we really liked our box seats for both performances.