Southern Utah University’s Gerald R. Sherratt Library will commemorate the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare’s death through an exhibit titled “Willy the Kid: Shakespeare in the American West.” The exhibit will open July 5 and run until Oct. 31 in the SUU library’s special collections.
The walkthrough exhibit features 16 printed artifacts including posters and scripts from the Gold Rush era (1850-1870) as well as stories of actors and production teams who traveled to the American West to put on Shakespeare shows in gold-mining towns.
Matt Nickerson, associate dean of the SUU library, said he wanted to have an exhibit in conjunction with the Utah Shakespeare Festival, which complemented the American Library Association’s traveling folio.
“I started doing research on a cool story of Shakespeare to do for the exhibit and I discovered that he was the most popular playwright on the western frontier,” said Nickerson.
Michael Bahr, education director at the Utah Shakespeare Festival, said the exhibit will showcase the popularity of Shakespeare’s works during that time.
“We want to celebrate his place in the American West and his importance to the early communities,” Bahr said. “He was a man for the West and was important for civilizing the West.”
The exhibit is sponsored in part by the education department at the Utah Shakespeare Festival and Utah Humanities, which enriches cultural, intellectual, and civic life by providing opportunities for all Utahns to explore the human experience.
“Willy the Kid” is free to the public every Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The SUU library will host an opening reception for the exhibit on July 6 at 6 p.m. in special collections. The reception is free and open to the public, and food refreshments will be served.
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