Adams Shakespearean Theatre
Cedar City, Utah
In the early 1960s, business owners worried that the proposed Interstate 15 would divert tourists from Cedar City as they travelled to Zions and Bryce Canyon national parks. Fred C. Adams, a professor at Southern Utah State College, thought a theater festival might encourage passing tourists to exit the new freeway. For its first season in 1962, the Utah Shakespeare Festival used a makeshift outdoor platform as a stage, with the audience seated in folding chairs on the lawn. In 1977, the festival built the Adams Shakespearean Theatre, a replica of the original Globe Theatre.
