Early in our relationship, my then almost-girlfriend looked at me and said, “I’m not sure I can marry someone who’s never seen a live Shakespeare play!” Challenge accepted. 😄 We’ve seen one every year since. The only exception was during COVID, when we watched a live digital stream of a play from Shakespeare’s Globe in London. Amazing!
This year my wife and I made the trip with one of our best friends, and we had a blast. Here are the traditions that make the Utah Shakespeare Festival one of our favorite weekends of the year.
The Road Trip: SkinnyPop and a Stop in Beaver
We love road tripping. Our first tradition starts before we leave town: we go to Sam’s Club and grab a monster bag of SkinnyPop popcorn for the road.
The second is a must: we stop in Beaver at The Creamery for ice cream. Our favorites:
- Rich & Famous: vanilla ice cream with brownie chunks and cookie dough
- Coconut Castaway
- I’m Your Huckleberry: huckleberry ice cream with yummy huckleberry swirls
Sitting outside on the lawn with a cone, halfway to Cedar City, is just plain nice.
The Greenshow and Those Famous Tarts
Before the evening plays there’s the Greenshow. It’s free, on a little outdoor stage under the trees, with live singing and dancing. Younger performers are often part of it, and there’s usually a Shakespeare theme. It’s on the lawn, hence the “Green” show. Fun!
At the Greenshow and during the plays, they sell homemade tarts in seasonal flavors. Getting them is a tradition we never skip.
The theater shops are fun too, with books on Shakespeare, swords, chocolates and more.
Wandering the grounds is half the fun, too. There are incredible statues of characters from Shakespeare’s plays, including ole’ Will himself! You’ll find Juliet, King Lear, Bottom, and more tucked around the festival.
Twelfth Night: A Mystical Stage at Night
My wife and I saw Twelfth Night, and the performers were incredible. The stage at night looked mystical.
Fun trivia: Scholars think Shakespeare wrote Twelfth Night around 1600 or 1601. The first recorded performance was on February 2, 1602. That was only a few years after his son Hamnet died in 1596 at age 11. Hamnet had a twin sister, Judith, and the play is about a brother and sister twins, Viola and Sebastian. They’re separated by a shipwreck, and Viola believes her brother is dead for most of the play. Many scholars see a possible echo of Shakespeare’s own loss there. We can’t know for sure, but it gives this comedy a tender heart.
Hamlet: The First One Is Hard to Beat
We saw Hamlet this year too. The first time I saw Hamlet at the festival is still hard to beat. The actor managed to weave more comedy into one of the most epic tragedies ever written.
The day was memorable before the play even started. We had just started dating, and that morning we hiked to the top of Mount Timpanogos. Then we literally ran down the mountain, got ready, and drove to Cedar City just in time for the pre-show orientation, where they go over things to watch for in the play. So fun!
Fun trivia: Shakespeare was writing Hamlet around the same years as Twelfth Night, a few years after his son died. And yes, Hamlet’s name is just one letter off from Hamnet’s.
Something Rotten! Shakespeare Meets the Musical
I loved the comedy of Something Rotten! It’s what could happen if you mixed Shakespeare with musicals. Pure hilarity! And the egg costumes were over the top.
Fun trivia: Something Rotten! opened on Broadway in 2015. In the story, a soothsayer tries to predict Shakespeare’s next hit, Hamlet, but gets it wrong and comes up with “Omelette.” That’s where all the eggs come from. 🥚 The Act One number “A Musical” squeezes in about 20 nods to famous Broadway shows. See how many you catch!
And the songs! The opening number, ‘Welcome to the Renaissance,’ is so catchy that you’ll find yourself singing it for days after the show, along with plenty of others. Give it a listen:
Centro Woodfired Pizzeria (and Our Reservation Tradition)
Every year we eat at Centro Woodfired Pizzeria in downtown Cedar City. And every year (haha) we also have a tradition of forgetting to make a reservation until the last second. They’re almost always packed. One year we couldn’t get in. This year we barely made it!
The three of us shared:
- Fennel Sausage: hand-crushed tomato sauce, house-made fennel sausage, aged and smoked mozzarella
- Artichoke Rosso
- Dolce Diavola: the spicy one
We had root beer with them. Something about root beer and pizza is a perfect combination!
The Museum and Its Hidden Shakespeare Challenge
Another tradition is visiting the Southern Utah Museum of Art (SUMA), right next to the festival theaters. It has different visiting art every year. One year it was a corset exhibit, and I remember one corset was Madonna’s. They wove stories about women and fashion history into it.
Fun trivia: That exhibit was “The Corset as Art: Past & Present” in 2021. It had more than 30 corsets, from early historical pieces to modern wearable art, and it paired with the festival’s play Intimate Apparel that season.
At the very back of the museum is a hidden challenge. It’s a painting with characters from every Shakespeare play, plus an answer sheet so you can check your guesses. My lovely bride got a near-perfect score!
So Many Fun Traditions
Ice cream in Beaver, the Greenshow, tarts, Centro, the museum, and of course the plays. A single sentence about seeing live Shakespeare turned into a tradition we look forward to all year.
Have you been to the Utah Shakespeare Festival? What’s your must-do road trip tradition?
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