Season in Review: 36 Facts from the 63 Season

By Liz Armstrong, guest writer

With the 2024 season officially over, we’d like to thank all those who attended, donated, volunteered, or participated in any way for supporting us once again this year. The Festival’s 63rd season came to a close on October 5, and as Will says: parting is such sweet sorrow. So, in the spirit of celebrating another successful year, let’s look at some of the highlights from this season.

Enjoy these fun facts regarding productions, strike, props, education, and more!

2024 Productions

1. The Greenshow pulled inspiration from the season’s Engelstad mainstage productions. Commedia Night drew inspiration from The Taming of the Shrew, Royals Night from Henry VIII, and Folk Night from The Winter’s Tale.

2. The infamous bear puppet from The Winter’s Tale will be on display in the Festival Props Shop for years to come.

3. Director Cameron Knight leaned into Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s mental health in The Mountaintop, exploring psychological and fear elements to approach King in a more human way.

4. Playwright Lauren Gunderson joined Southern Utah University and the Festival in September to talk about her production of Silent Sky.

5. This is the 11th time The Taming of the Shrew and the 9th time Much Ado About Nothing was produced at the Festival.

6. The Festival’s Artistic Director, John DiAntonio, played Petruchio in The Taming of the Shrew this season opposite his real-life wife, Caitlin Wise, as Kate in their first season as part of the Festival.

7. The play The 39 Steps has over 150 characters and was played by a cast of only four actors.

8. This was only the third time Henry VIII was produced at the Festival. It was last produced nearly thirty years ago, in 1995, and 1974 before that.

9. There was a performance of The 39 Steps this season in which three out of four cast members were understudies. They did a tremendous job on such a difficult show!

10. The closing night of the Engelstad Shakespeare Theatre brought record-numbers for audience attendance: over 900 at the Commedia Night Greenshow and a sold-out house for The Taming of the Shrew in the Engelstad Shakespeare Theatre.

    End-of-Season Strike

11. The Festival implemented a new Costume Inventory Program this season, making costumes more accessible to designers. The process includes applying heat-set bar codes on each costume piece, and then uploading photographs and information about each piece into the system. Pieces from this season will be some of the first to undergo this process.

12. While some prop and scenery pieces will be sold or given to other organizations and interested patrons, most will be stored in the props warehouse and scenery storage tent––a combined space of about 8,500 square feet––for future seasons after strike.

13. The Festival hosted a surplus sale during last weekend’s annual Shakespeare Competition, giving nearly 3,000 students and their teachers and chaperones the opportunity to take home pieces of theatre history.

    Costumes and Props

14. David Mickelsen was the costume designer of an original version of Silent Sky when Lauren Gunderson was writing it in Cleveland. He came this season to design the same show for the Festival.

15. Uniforms for Much Ado About Nothing were custom made in Scotland.

16. Some costume pieces were borrowed from Arizona Theatre Company for Silent Sky, while others were pulled from Festival stock.

17. Two king sized fur comforters were used to make the bear puppet for The Winter’s Tale.

18. There were four bears in The Winter’s Tale. The bear rug (custom built in the prop shop), a wooden toy bear (purchased by the prop shop), the giant bear puppet (custom built in the prop shop), and a stuffed animal bear sold by the character Autolocus to the young shepherd, which two girls fought over, resulting in ripping its head off (the prop shop modified a regular teddy bear so this action could happen each performance).

19. All the aluminum legs for The Taming of the Shrew furniture were custom bent in the prop shop and welded by Assistant Props Director, Marielle Boneau.

20. The 39 Steps armchair ended up being two chairs––one for each act due to the nature of the action in the play.

21. The Greenshow stage got an arch this year that was originally designed to be used in 2016.

22. There were seven ladders in The 39 Steps. One of them was custom welded for the Festival by a local company.

23. The Props Department went through 14 buckets for the “foot stuck in the bucket” scene in Much Ado About Nothing.

    The People

24. There were several Southern Utah University students, alumni, and faculty in the acting company this year, including Ashley Aquino, Zac Barnaby, Whitney Black, Trent Dahlin, Gracelyn Erickson, Luke Sidney Johnson, Rockwell MacGillivray, Bailey Savage, Elise Thayn, Marco Antonio Vega, Spencer Watson, Stephen K. Wagner, Matthew Wangemann, Emily Wheeler, and Gabriel Wright.

25. Former Director of New Play Development, Derek Charles Livingston, directed Henry VIII this season and became the new Artistic Director of Stage Theatre in Houston in August.

26. John DiAntonio and Michael Bahr completed their first season as Artistic Director and Executive Managing Director, our fearless head leadership team. Congratulations!

27. The Festival was delighted to be back in the local community parades this year.

28. Stewart Shelley was appointed as the Education Director, moving from Associate Education Director. What an exciting announcement!

29. Director of Development and Communications Donn Jersey announced his upcoming departure from the Festival. We thank him for his six and a half years of leadership.

    Education Department

30. Schools from California, Arizona, Wisconsin, Utah, and Nevada attended this year’s Shakespeare Competition.

31. For the Junior and Actor Training Camps this summer, students attended from Utah, Michigan, Florida, Colorado, Oregon, Idaho, Iowa, Maryland, Arizona, and Nevada. They also traveled from Canada and the US Virgin Islands.

32. During the 2024 Shakespeare in the School’s Tour of Hamlet, there were 52 performances in 29 public schools, 1 public district, 14 public charter schools, two residential treatment centers and eight community performances in various venues.

33. Nearly 10,000 students saw this production of Hamlet, engaged in a Q&A with the actors, and participated in various workshops led by the tour team.

34. This season, there was supplemental astronomy encounters surrounding Silent Sky, including discussion in the Seminar Grove. Dark Sky Coordinator at Cedar Breaks National Monument Mattias Schmitt and Dr. Cameron Pace from the Ashcroft Observatory discussed the science behind the story.

35. The Education Department was delighted to welcome the 2024 company members back as tour guides for the backstage tours.

36. Company members participated in the Juvenile Justice program at the Southwest Utah Youth Center in Cedar City.

So many amazing moments created and experiences enjoyed this season! The 63rd season served as a time that encouraged those that attended and participated to ‘Believe’ in the transformative power of live theater. We’d like to profoundly thank our patrons and donors for supporting us and encourage you to return next year for the 2025 season.

The lineup for the 64th season includes: Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra, As You Like It, A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder, The Importance of Being Earnest, and Steel Magnolias. Tickets are on sale now!