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CEDAR CITY — The Utah Shakespeare Festival opens this week with favorite and familiar Shakespeare plays, a play based on an Academy-award winning film, gamblers and pirates.
The festival begins its 56th season by bringing audiences a first — pairing "Romeo and Juliet" with "Shakespeare in Love."
"Shakespeare in Love" is an Academy Award-winning film which is now a play about the writing of "Romeo and Juliet." The Utah play is one of only three premiere productions in the country.
Betsy Mugavero plays the role of Juliet in both "Romeo and Juliet" and "Shakespeare in Love."
"Honestly, (it's) such an honor for us. It's such a fun story to tell, and I think audiences are going to love it," she said. "And one of the special things about our production is that we are performing it outside so that when we talk to the stars, we can see the stars."
She and real-life husband Quinn Mattfeld play opposite each other in "Shakespeare in Love."
"It's an opportunity to fall in love with my wife again every night," he said. "It's really, really lovely. People don't often get a chance to stop and celebrate their partner, and we get to do that." Mattfeld plays Will — as in Will Shakespeare. It's a daunting task.
"It's as if William Shakespeare were in a romantic comedy and that's kind of the way it has to be played," Mattfeld said. "You can't get everything because his mind it too big and his soul is too big and just his legend it too big."
Mugavero and Mattfeld are Utah Shakespeare Festival veterans. But Shane Kenyon, who plays Romeo, is celebrating his first season here as an actor. He attended as an audience member when he was a teenager.
"I remember my junior summer of high school, I did one of the actor training programs here and I was like, 'Man, I hope one day I can be where I am.' So it's been a really cool full circle," he said.
The festival will also present Shakespeare's "As You Like It" and "A Midsummer Night's Dream," plus the much-loved musical comedy "Guys and Dolls" and the regional premiere of the swashbuckling "Treasure Island."
Three more productions round out the season, which stretches through the end of October. For details, visit Bard.org.
