{"id":41905,"date":"2022-03-02T23:03:53","date_gmt":"2022-03-03T06:03:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/utah-shakespeare-festival-coming-to-montezuma-cortez-high-school\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:04:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:04:14","slug":"utah-shakespeare-festival-coming-to-montezuma-cortez-high-school","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/utah-shakespeare-festival-coming-to-montezuma-cortez-high-school\/","title":{"rendered":"Utah Shakespeare Festival coming to Montezuma-Cortez High School"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"A
A rendering of Shakespeare's \"Much Ado About Nothing\" by Utah Shakespeare Festival will take to the Montezuma-Cortez High School stage Saturday. (Courtesy of Karl Hugh\/Utah Shakespeare Festival)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Making light of some of life\u2019s most consequential events, Utah Shakespeare Co. is delivering a rendition of \u201cMuch Ado About Nothing\u201d on Saturday at Montezuma-Cortez High School.<\/p>\n

The comical performance is the latest in the theater company\u2019s 28-year-long \u201cShakespeare-in-the-Schools\u201d tour.<\/p>\n

The cast and crew aim to reach schools and rural communities throughout the Intermountain West with a roster of eight professional actors sourced from a national search, according to a news release.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe rural communities get less chances to be a part of something like this,\u201d said Donn Jersey, director of development and communications for the Utah Shakespeare Festival.<\/p>\n

The play is 75 minutes long, and will feature a \u201ctalk back\u201d following the close of the curtains in which the audience can dissect character behaviors in an open forum.<\/p>\n

The show delves into morals and societal values \u2013 among them love, marriage and military allusions.<\/p>\n

Besides its engaging breakdown of otherwise dark topics, the experience serves as a learning opportunity for students interested in the performing arts.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s just light bulb moments with young people,\u201d Jersey said.<\/p>\n

\"A
A rendering of Shakespeare's \"Much Ado About Nothing\" by Utah Shakespeare Festival will take to the Montezuma-Cortez High School stage Saturday. (Courtesy of Karl Hugh\/Utah Shakespeare Festival)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

M-CHS drama students will get a flavor of professional acting tours, and will help the company to set up and take down the set.<\/p>\n

And, the students will participate in a series of workshops with the company ahead of Saturday\u2019s show to build their acting repertoires.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a really great opportunity for our students and our faculty and everybody \u2013 especially our drama students \u2013 to see a professional group of actors come and perform Shakespeare,\u201d said M-CHS Theatre Director Nicholaus Sandner.<\/p>\n

The company has a way of adapting Shakespeare plays into \u201capproachable\u201d formats that are relatable for modern audiences.<\/p>\n

For instance, a previous Romeo and Juliet production unfolded in a classroom setting, he said.<\/p>\n

Sandner requests the company to land in Cortez each year on its education tour. Last year, the performance was virtual because of COVID-19.<\/p>\n

The performance will begin at 7 p.m. in the M-CHS Ralph Vavak Auditorium.<\/p>\n

Ticket prices are $10 for adults, $6 for students and seniors, and free for kids five and under.<\/p>\n

The Utah Shakespeare Festival requests that audience members wear masks.<\/p>\n

The play demonstrates that \u201clove is wonderfully complicated, vulnerable, and at its essence, simple \u2014 once we throw our weapons and shields aside and allow people to be themselves,\u201d according to a statement from Utah Shakespeare Education Director Michael Bahr.<\/p>\n

The tour is funded by the Shakespeare for a New Generation program sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Utah State Office of Education, Professional Outreach Programs in the Schools, Ally Bank and Southern Utah University.<\/p>\n

kparkinson@the-journal.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2018Much Ado About Nothing\u2019 on view at 7 p.m. Saturday<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":41906,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[363,1060,155,28,167,36,216,29,910],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-41905","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-arts","tag-arts-entertainment","tag-education","tag-headlines","tag-local-news-lead","tag-montezuma-cortez-high-school","tag-montezuma-cortez-school-district-re-1","tag-newsletter","tag-theatre"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41905","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41905"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41905\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":85141,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41905\/revisions\/85141"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41905"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=41905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}