The bard in our backyard: Utah Shakespearean Festival celebrating 40 years

Monday, June 18, 2001 | 8:40 a.m.

Las Vegas has deepened its roots at the Utah Shakespearean Festival this year.

The ties binding the annual festival to Southern Nevada extend beyond Interstate 15, the freeway linking Las Vegas to Cedar City, a three-hour drive to the northeast. About a third of the 130,000 people who attend the festival each year travel from Las Vegas.

This year nine Las Vegas residents are spending the summer as actors and musicians working on- and offstage in the cool pine groves where the festival unfolds each afternoon and evening from Thursday through Sept. 1.

Actors from Las Vegas will take the wooden stage each night alongside veterans, part of a cast that has less than two months to learn its lines and fit into its costumes for dramatizing this year's theme, "Celebrate 40 Years of Theatre Magic."

Chad and Colby Baker are following their famous father, Doug Baker, as performers in the revelry of the Greenshow and the Royal Feaste, the annual festival's backdrop theme shows that set the mood for the plays.

Doug Baker became famous in Las Vegas for his performance as Merlin the Magician at the Excalibur's "Tournament of Kings" and its predecessor "King Arthur's Tournament," as well as host of the Royal Feaste, a taste of the Renaissance.

The feast's food and fun begin at 5:30 p.m. every Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday from June 27-Sept. 1 in the King's Pavillion, north of the festival complex. (Reservations are required by noon of the feast day.)

Baker's sons -- Chad Baker, a musician in the Revels Company, and Colby Baker as King Henry V in the Feaste and as part of the Revels Co. -- will perform during each pre-show performance this year.

Shawn Critchfield of Las Vegas will join the Baker brothers in the Greenshow, a complementary warm-up act to the evening's Shakespeare plays. Then he'll take the stage as a pirate in "The Pirates of Penzance" and as a senator in "Julius Caesar."

Joel Hanson, another Southern Nevada local, plays Officer Klein in "Arsenic and Old Lace," and a mariner/reaper in "The Tempest."

For Las Vegan Phil Hubbard, the season will see him in two roles, Antonio in "Two Gentlemen of Verona" and as Cinna in "Julius Caesar."

Isiah Urrabazo of Las Vegas is a costume technician for "Two Gentleman."

Melinda Pfundstein is Rose in "The Pirates of Penzance" and Belle in "Ah, Wilderness!"

Actor and Las Vegas resident Steve Reyes portrays Francisco in "Tempest" and a knight/pirate in "Pirates."

Shannaz Kahn of Las Vegas works behind the scenes, helping costume the cast for "Pirates," which includes festival founder Fred Adams.

Adams is learning not only his lines, but the lyrics to several songs for his role as Maj. Gen. Stanley in "Pirates."

"I can carry a tune," Adams said, "but it's going to take some work to make it sound like singing," especially the fast-paced and tongue-twisting number, "I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General."

Of 28 musical numbers in the production, Adams will perform in six.

"I feel that the major general and I are cut from the same cloth," Adams joked. "He's a bit of a pompous character, so I imagine I'll be perfect for the role."

Adams' return to the stage should delight audiences attending this year's production, marketing and public relations director Donna Law said.

"How appropriate that for the 40th anniversary of the Utah Shakespearean Festival, the founder of this company will be performing for the audiences he has loved for so many years," Law said.

Festival regulars will remember that Adams acted the role of Pseudolus in the memorable 1995 production of "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum."

More recently he directed "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat" in 1998 and his own adaptation of "Peter Pan" in 2000.

Many actors and actresses return year after year to Cedar City to speak Shakespeare's words under the stars in the open-air Adams Shakespearean Theatre.

Michael Kevin returns for the first time since 1997 when he appeared as Claudius in "Hamlet," Charles VI in "Henry V" and multiple roles in "Pericles."

This season Kevin plays the castaway duke of Milan, Prospero, in "The Tempest." He will also play the role of Casca in "Julius Caesar."

Kevin spent more than 18 seasons with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland. He is a member of the Actors' Equity Association and has appeared in productions in Denver, San Jose, Calif., and Dallas.

Then there is Mark Brown, making his first appearance at Utah's festival as the jester, Trinculo, in "The Tempest." Brown will also play Dr. Einstein in this year's production of "Arsenic and Old Lace."

Another familiar face belongs to Mary Dolson, fresh from her role as Mistress Ann Page in "The Merry Wives of Windsor," and Anya Ranevskaya in "The Cherry Orchard." This year she plays the role of Miranda, Propero's headstrong daughter, in "The Tempest." Dolson will play Elaine Harper in "Arsenic and Old Lace."