1 Barbara G Adams Memorial – In the Beginning…
This bas relief bronze panel was created by Stanley J. Watts in honor of Barbara Gaddies Adams, co-founder of the Utah Shakespeare Festival. Barbara and her husband Fred C. Adams first envisioned a Shakespeare Theater in Southern Utah in 1961 while washing their clothes at the Fluffy Bundle, a local Cedar City laundromat. They opened their first season a year later with a $1000 investment from the Lion’s Club. Their first season ran for 2 weeks, offering The Taming of the Shrew, Hamlet and The Merchant of Venice in rotating repertory. It was a hit. With a budget of over $7 million today, the Festival performs 8 shows every summer , in three beautiful venues, and won a Tony Award in 2000.
2 Barbara G Adams Memorial – The Greenshow
This memorial stands at the Festival Greenshow stage in recognition of the work of Barbara Adams in first creating this mainstay of the Utah Shakespeare Festival. Barbara was adamant that the Festival include a nightly Greenshow, featuring live, family friendly, free entertainment before each evening’s full production. Barbara put herself in charge of the music, invested in some recorders and taught a group of amatuer musicians to play them. Before the Festival became the sensation that it is today, Barbara’s group would wander downtown in the late afternoon, playing and singing medieval music to invite tourists to that evening’s performance. Like the beautiful evening weather and the tasty Renaissance tarts, the Greenshow is now an integral part of the festival experience that has kept visitors coming back year after year for over five decades.
3 Barbara G Adams Memorial – Co-Founder
Barbara Gattie Adams co-founded the Utah Shakespeare Festival with her soon-to-be husband Fred C. Adams in 1962. Barbara studied at Utah State University where she earned a bachelor’s degree in Theatre while minoring in Speech and Hearing. She taught public school in Cedar City before moving on to graduate school at the University of Washington where she earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in Speech Pathology and Audiology in 1960. Upon her return to Cedar City she established the first audiology program for the Cedar City School District and later served as the first Dean of Women at Southern Utah State College. Barbara never lost faith in the Festival and gave it her unstinting support throughout its early years, helping to establish it as the artistic and economic force that it is today
Artist: Stanley J Watts
This piece was created by nationally recognized artist Stanley J. Watts. After attending Utah State University for a year, Watts continued his training under the tutelage of noted Salt Lake City sculptor Dr. Avard Fairbanks. Watts is best known for his bronze sculptures celebrating famous figures in American history including one of George Washington located near the revolutionary encampment at Valley Forge and one of Abraham Lincoln near the Civil War battlefield in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.
Mr Watts created several of the statues in the Pedersen Shakespeare Garden, depicting some of Shakespeare’s most famous and endearing characters. This landscaped sculpture gallery is only a few steps away to the south, between the Randall L Jones and Engelstad Shakespeare Theatres.