As amusingly depicted in the 1998 film "Shakespeare in Love," the world of theater was prey to economic setbacks even in William Shakespeare's day. Philip Henslowe, manager of the company that employs rising playwright Will Shakespeare, describes the situation to his financial backer this way: "Mr. Fennyman, allow me to explain about the theater business. The natural condition is one of insurmountable obstacles on the road to imminent disaster."

"So what do we do?" Fennyman asks.

"Nothing," Henslowe says. "Strangely enough, it all turns out well."

Even in the movie, arriving at a rosy outcome isn't quite that simple. In the real world of 2009, the sluggish national economy makes a cheerful exaggeration like "imminent disaster" feel uncomfortably close to the mark. In Cedar City, the show(s) will go on during the 48th season of the Utah Shakespearean Festival, from now through the end of August.

The festival kicked things off June 29 with a preview performance of Shakespeare's "The Comedy of Errors." Monday is the first day of the festival's official opening week, with all six summer productions taking the stage by Saturday night. Per the USF norm, three are works of Shakespeare: "The Comedy of Errors," "As You Like It" and "Henry V." The remaining three are favorites from other playwrights of note, the musical adaptation of Frances Hodgson Burnett's "The Secret Garden," by Marsha Norman (book and lyrics) and Lucy Simon (music); Hume Cronyn and Susan Cooper's "Foxfire" and Noel Coward's "Private Lives."

Behind the scenes, however, the festival, like many other arts organizations, has been through an increasingly familiar wringer of belt-tightening, cost-cutting and decidedly cautious speculation about the future.

USF executive director Scott Phillips said that the festival cut about $750,000 from its budget this year (in recent years, USF has had annual operating costs of around $6 million), including cutting back seasonal positions (75 jobs lost) and reducing both rehearsal time and production runs.

Phillips said that the budget-busting process has been "one of the most difficult things we've done," but he's confident that what you see on the festival's stages will be as good as it's ever been. "We have worked very hard," he said, "to make sure that the artistic quality of the productions is not diminished."

The festival has perspective, and even a sense of humor about its quandary. Fred Adams, USF founder, laughed when asked whether he'd be joining the cast of one of the plays as a cost-saving measure. "We at least had enough money to hire really fine actors," Adams said. "They didn't need me this summer."

(Adams, who has acted in past USF productions a handful of times, said that he would like to take the stage in 2011, when the festival presents its 50th anniversary season.)

The festival has weathered hard economic times in the past, Adams said, especially in the late '70s and early '80s. A silver lining for USF organizers is that overall festival attendance may actually increase, as vacationing Utahns look for entertainment options closer to home. More problematic, Adams said, is the potential impact of stormy financial seas on the festival's donors.

Not sacrificing 'artistic integrity'

The festival will use money it generates this season to pay for a healthy portion of next year's expenses, but Adams said that, on average, about 60 cents out of every dollar spent is money from festival donors. If that money doesn't materialize, or if there ends up being less of it than anticipated, then further cost-saving measures may be in order.

Phillips said that, if necessary, the festival would consider temporarily shelving its fall encore season, which typically features three plays (one by Shakespeare) and runs six weeks. In 2009, it's already been shortened to four weeks and will include the parody "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)" instead of a Shakespeare play.

Some aspects of the festival haven't been affected. Janet Swenson, a theatre and media arts professor at Brigham Young University, does costuming work in Cedar City and said that she had almost all of the resources at her disposal this year that she usually does. "The budgets are tight, and they've asked us to be very good stewards of the money and not spend if we don't have to," Swenson said.

That hasn't lessened her enthusiasm for her work, which in 2009 has included making 75 costumes for "The Secret Garden." The festival's "artistic integrity" hasn't faltered in the least, Swenson said. The USF administrators, she said, "believe in the festival and they believe in the work that we do. I always feel cared for and supported when I'm there."

And the festival will be humming with all of its usual creative energy. Salt Lake City actor Joyce Cohen has roles in "The Secret Garden" and "Foxfire," and is also an understudy for a dual role in "Henry V." It's a lot to take on for a performer who's never done repertory theater (appearing in multiple productions simultaneously with the same company), but Cohen doesn't regret being involved.

"It's wonderful, challenging work," she said. "The people in the acting community in Utah who I know, they were just jealous that I was getting a chance to come down here."

For longtime USF actor David Ivers, who's directing the fall production of "The Complete Works" and appearing in the summer season's "Henry V" and "As You Like It," the final weeks of August are set to pass by in a whirlwind of activity. Is it worth the effort? "That's one of the great things about working here," Ivers said. "You get to do vast and varied things."

As a wearer of multiple hats, Ivers, who directed last season's glowingly reviewed "Cyrano de Bergerac," said that he enjoys observing the entire theatrical process while acting in plays. With each show, he can consider what it might look like from a director's perspective "because hopefully I'll be directing it someday."

The future is on the minds of festival administrators as well, but Adams think there may be less uncertainty there than some have portrayed. During past economic slowdowns, he said, "the word got out, 'This is going to be a tough time for the arts.' "

Maybe it will turn out that way this time. Adams thinks there's a different, equally likely possibility. "The arts," he said, "seem to be the one thing people turn to when things go sour."

Utah County actor grows with 'Garden'

It will be several years before 10-year-old Talon Ackerman gets his driver's license, but he's already discovering another important ritual of teenagerhood: the summer job. From now until the end of August, Talon and several family members will be living in Cedar City (Utah County is home) while he appears in "The Secret Garden" at the Utah Shakespearean Festival's Randall L. Jones Theatre.

It all came together for Talon after he acted in "Seussical: The Musical" at Orem's SCERA Theater. Talon's "Seussical" director suggested that he audition for a USF acting job and the young actor decided to give it a whirl. Was there any anxiety about his big audition? "It was just fun," Talon said.

Festival founder Fred Adams said that Talon and his young co-stars are a highlight of the production. "The children who are playing these roles, they're just tremendously talented," Adams said.

It's all play and no work as far as Talon is concerned. "There is one scene where I have a long line that takes up most of the page," he said. Talon said that it took him a week or two to really nail it, but even that didn't stop the budding young performer, who plays the role of sickly Colin Craven, from having a good time: "The people here are very fun to be around."

There are lots of things to do when rehearsals are done, Talon said, including golf, tennis, riding and hiking with family members in nearby Zion National Park. Talon is even planning to catch some of the other USF plays. "I think I'm going to see 'Comedy of Errors' and 'Henry V,' " he said.

During the festival, Talon will appear in alternating performances of "The Secret Garden," either two or three times a week. (Because of child labor laws, he'll share the role of Colin with Nikaiya DeBirk.)

Talon said that he enjoys working with his co-stars, especially the two girls, Summer Sloan and Ellie Smith, who play Mary Lennox, the story's young protagonist. He even got some good advice about acting from perennial USF favorite Brian Vaughn, who plays Colin's cold-hearted uncle, Dr. Neville Craven.

"He said to always believe in yourself," Talon said, "and most of the time you'll get something good from it."

Talk this way: Voice coach prepares actors

In all six plays at the Utah Shakespearean Festival in Cedar City this year, the performers will talk funny, so to speak. Not because there's a lot of comedy at this year's festival -- although there is -- but because five of the shows require the actors to sound British, or at least European, in varying degrees, while the sixth calls for a sampling of the accents scattered among the southern reaches of the Appalachian Mountains.

"I play an older woman who has lived all her life in Georgia, in the mountains," said Salt Lake City resident Joyce Cohen. That's for "Foxfire." For her role in "The Secret Garden," Cohen is an English housekeeper. And if she has to step in as an understudy in "Henry V," then she'll be using what Jack Greenman, one of the festival's two voice, speech and dialect coaches, described as "classical theater speech."

Greenman starts working with actors on the first day of rehearsal, he said, and meets individually with "pretty much everyone" in the cast. "The most important way of selling a dialect," said Greenman, "is to make sure that the cast has a consistent sound, that they sound like they're in the same world."

Each actor gets a specific list of sound substitutions. As they try out the new sounds, Greenman tries to get them accustomed to the "oral posture" of their accent or dialect. "I want them to be speaking by feel," he said, "instead of listening to how they speak while they act."

For younger actors, like those in the cast of "The Secret Garden," Greenman works more on teaching them to imitate sounds. Older actors are better able to handle teaching tools like the International Phonetic Alphabet. Cohen said that she began listening to language tapes months before arriving at the festival.

With all of his actors, Greenman said, he avoids telling them how to act their lines. His only job is to be sure that the dialogue has a consistent ring to it when spoken.

For most actors, it takes between 10 days and two weeks to get the basic sound. With each of his casts, Greenman said, he tells the performers to throw themselves into it -- it's easiest if they overshoot and then he helps them pull back. "You don't ever want to say, 'Here's the target and it's an inch-and-a-half wide,'" he said.

Which has its drawbacks. "You can't tell them, 'It's exactly this and nothing else,'" Greenman said, "and that makes actors crazy."

-- Cody Clark

Cat(alog) o' Nine Tales

During its nine-week summer season, the Utah Shakespearean Festival will present six plays, three from the works of William Shakespeare and three by other playwrights of note. Three additional plays (one by Shakespeare) are produced during a four-week encore season in September and October.

1. "As You Like It" (William Shakespeare)

Through Aug. 29 at the Adams Shakespearean Theatre

Heartsick Orlando woos Rosalind with the assistance of ... Rosalind. Disguised as a man, of course. Where there's a Will, there's a way.

2. "The Comedy of Errors" (William Shakespeare)

Through Aug. 29 at the Adams Shakespearean Theatre and the Auditorium Theatre

Two plus two equal lots of laughs in this tale of twin masters and their twin servants becoming all twin-tangled in ancient Ephesus.

3. "Henry V" (William Shakespeare)

Through Aug. 28 at the Adams Shakespearean Theatre

Feckless Prince Hal becomes a man and a king by doing what kings (and men) do: beating up on the French.

4. "Foxfire" (Susan Cooper and Hume Cronyn)

Through Aug. 29 at the Randall L. Jones Theatre

Home is where the heart is for aged Annie Nations, but her country singer son wants to teach her a different tune.

5. "Private Lives" (Noel Coward)

Through Aug. 28 at the Randall L. Jones Theatre

Divorced former spouses show up at the same hotel, each with a brand new partner. Let the honeymoon hijinks commence!

6. "The Secret Garden" (Marsha Norman and Lucy Simon; based on the novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett)

Through Aug. 29 at the Randall L. Jones Theatre

There are weeds that must be pulled before family relationships can blossom in this timeless children's tale.

7. "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)" (Adam Long, Daniel Singer and Jess Borgeson)

Sept. 19 through Oct. 17 at the Randall L. Jones Theatre

Festival, shm-estival. Get a taste of everything that Shakespeare ever wrote (sonnets included) in less than two hours.

8. "Tuesdays with Morrie" (Jeffrey Hatcher and Mitch Albom)

Sept. 18 through Oct. 16 at the Randall L. Jones Theatre

A sports reporter on the verge of striking out in the game of life gets a fresh pitch count from his favorite college professor.

9. "The Woman in Black" (Stephen Mallatratt; based on the novel by Susan Hill)

Sept. 19 through Oct. 17 at the Randall L. Jones Theatre

Happy Halloween! A young man struggles to rid himself of persistent nightmares years after attempting to settle the affairs of an abandoned estate.

Who's Got Next?

Want to get cheap tickets? The plays to be performed at next year's Utah Shakespearean Festival have already been chosen, and if you purchase tickets by Dec. 18, you can reap an "Early Bard" discount of $4/ticket if you select certain performance dates.

The 2010 summer lineup will include Shakespeare's "Macbeth," "The Merchant of Venice" and "Much Ado About Nothing." On the non-Shakespeare side, the festival will be doing a stage version of Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice," a stage version of Alfred Hitchcock's "The 39 Steps" and the world premiere presentation of a musical adapted from Charles Dickens's "Great Expectations."

The 2010 fall lineup will include Shakespeare's "The Adventures of Pericles," as well as "The Diary of Anne Frank" and the two-man comedy "Greater Tuna."

Also at the Festival

The Utah Shakespearean Festival has three stages but only two showtimes. You can see a play at 2 p.m. or 8 p.m., Monday through Saturday. You'll only be bored, however, if you really work at it.

The festival has free daily play orientations, at 1 p.m. and 6:45 p.m., where patrons can get a pre-show summary of the action (especially helpful for Shakespeare plays), and daily literary seminars (also free), at 9 a.m. and 10 a.m., for festivalgoers who want to engage in a more in-depth discussion.

There's also one of three different production seminars (free) daily at 11 a.m.

The Props Seminar, Costume Seminar and Actor Seminar (meet festival cast members!) give patrons a chance to become acquainted with various different aspects of the onstage action.

Tours, exhibits, a series of readings of works by emerging playwrights and the Greenshow -- a presentation of Elizabethan song, dance and general tomfoolery held each night on the grounds outside the Adams Shakespearean Theatre -- can also fill up the hours.

For complete information, visit www.bard.org online, or contact the festival directly at (435) 586-7880

-- Cody Clark

Where to stay and what to do in Cedar City

Bargain hunters can bunk in Southern Utah University's unoccupied student dorms during the Utah Shakespearean Festival's summer season -- contact Lee Chamberlain at (435) 865-8238 for reservations -- or perhaps rent a Kamping Kabin or pitch a tent at the Cedar City KOA: (435) 586-9872.

There are many other lodging options, however, ranging from bed-and-breakfast inns within walking distance of the festival, on up through an assortment of motels and hotels in Cedar City and surrounding communities, to the historic opulence of Zion Lodge (www.zionlodge.com) at the foot of Angel's Landing in (relatively) nearby Zion National Park.

The festival maintains a detailed listing of nearly three dozen local accommodations, including phone numbers, Web sites and basic rate information, online at www.bard.org/visit/lodging.html.

The frugal can plan to purchase groceries at Walmart (1330 S. Providence Center Dr. in Cedar City) or Smith's (633 S. Main St.). The options for diners start with the usual assortment of fast-food eateries (Taco Bell, McDonald's, Arby's) and range up through the prime rib, steak and seafood at the Cedar Creek Restaurant (86 S. Main St.) or the scenic splendor offered by Milt's Stage Stop -- (435) 586-9344 -- or Rusty's Ranch House -- (435) 586-3839 -- in nearby Cedar Canyon.

(There's a more complete picture at LetsEatOutUtah.com, which lists address and phone information for 45 different Cedar City restaurants. Go to the site, click "Advanced Search" on the home page and enter the ZIP code 84720 for Cedar City.)

If you want a few hours away from the festival altogether, then both Cedar City and nearby St. George offer golfing at top-rated courses (see www.utah.com/golf). Nearby historical sites include Iron Mission State Park in Cedar City (stateparks.utah.gov/stateparks/parks/iron-mission/) and a memorial to the victims of the Mountain Meadows Massacre south of town on State Highway 19.

Vacationers visiting the festival frequently dip into Zion National Park or Cedar Breaks National Monument. Bryce Canyon National Park and Capitol Reef National Park are farther off, though still within range of the ambitious festivalgoer, and the caves and towering sandstone cliffs of Snow Canyon State Park are just down the road.

-- Cody Clark

For additional information:

Zion National Park: www.nps.gov/zion or (435) 772-3256

Cedar Breaks National Monument: www.nps.gov/cebr or (435) 586-9451

Bryce Canyon National Park: www.nps.gov/brca or (435) 834-5322

Capitol Reef National Park: www.nps.gov/care or (435) 425-3791-111

Snow Canyon State Park: stateparks.utah.gov/stateparks/parks/snow-canyon/ or (435) 628-2255

If you go

Utah Shakespearean Festival

Where: 351 W. Center St., Cedar City

When: Performances daily except Sundays through Aug. 30; daily except Sundays and Mondays, Sept. 19 through Oct. 25

Cost: $22-$56 Monday through Wednesday, $26-$60 Thursday through Saturday; reduced rates from Sept. 19 through Oct. 25

Child Care: Children up to age 10 can be left at the festival's "play care" center at a cost, per play, of $15 for the first child, plus $10 for each additional sibling. Children 5 and younger not admitted to any plays.

Parking: Free parking within easy walking distance of all festival theaters is available in the lot on the northwest corner of the intersection of 300 West and Center Street.

Info: 1-800-PLAYTIX or www.bard.org

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