Passport to Heroes lecture features Utah Shakespeare Festival's Michael Bahr

The Utah Shakespeare Festival was founded by Fred C. Adams and his wife, Barbara, but since its inception, there have been many people who have helped the Festival get to where it is and without whom the Festival may not still exist.

In addition to his own choices, Bahr talked about several people’s lists of whom they thought these people were and how they “saved the Festival.” The first list he shared was that of Adams.

One of the people on Adams list was a woman named Sadie Barnard. She and her husband had started a ranch in northwestern Utah, and her husband promised her that one day when they had enough money, he would build her a nice townhome.

Barnard became the cook on their ranch and put the money from this job into a fund so she could buy nice furniture for her future townhome. Eventually, they built a beautiful townhome in Brigham City, and Barnard’s husband filled the home with furniture. However, not all of the fund was spent.

Barnard traveled frequently and would often come to the Utah Shakespeare Festival in its early days. Prior to her death in 1975, she came down to Cedar City and asked Adams what he needed to make his dream for the Festival happen. She then told Adams that she had $25,000 still in their “townhome fund” and that she would like to donate to the Festival. Another hero of the Festival, O.C. Tanner, matched Barnard’s contribution, and the Festival was able to build the Adams Theatre, named after Grace Adams.

Other names from Adams’ list included Royden C. Braithwaite, a dean and eventual president of the College of Southern Utah who supported Adams’ idea for the Festival from the beginning, and Paul Southwick, a controller at the college who also donated money to the Festival in the early years.

Bahr also discussed the list of the Festival’s Associate Director of Education, Joshua Stavros.  Stavros’ list also included Tanner and Braithwaite. It also included the Festival’s founders Fred and Barbara Adams; R. Scott Phillips, the first marketing director who is now the Executive Director of the Festival; and Michael T. Benson, former SUU president who suggested combining the Festival’s new theatre and the Southern Utah Museum of Art project, both of which are now currently under constructions.

The last list that Bahr discussed was his own, which also included Adams. Next on Bahr’s list was Michael Finlayson, who came up with the concepts of having discussions and seminars after the shows.

 Also on Bahr’s list were Ray Jones, who started the Shakespeare Competition for high school students at USF; Gary Armagnac, a USF actor who started the Shakespeare in the Schools program; and Wayne Mifflin, who funded the youth program Playmakers for the first few years.

Bahr also talked about five categories of people that he considered to be heroes of the Festival: philanthropists, dreamers, board members, artists, and patrons. He concluded his lecture by sharing a few stories of people from each of these categories.