“If we had $1,000, we would need that much for lumber, for fabric, for costumes, and a couple of lighting instruments.
Keeping in mind, this was the 60s, and $1,000 was a lot of money.
I had 21 SUU students, then College of Southern Utah students, and we had an enormously difficult, but fun, daily schedule.
We arrived at 9.
We had an hour work call, working either in a costume shop or props or scenery, and at 10 o'clock we would go into our first rehearsal.
We would take a break for lunch, then go into our second rehearsal for the second play, since we were doing three.
And then there would be a two-hour work session in the shops. and they would be back at 7 o'clock to rehearse until 11.
Morning, Shrew, Merchant of Venice Afternoons, and Hamlet Evenings.
So we had a rigid schedule, but it was a schedule full of enjoyment and camaraderie.
We had a great fun time.
We were able to get underwriting from the local Lions Club.
Nobody else kind of caught the vision of what we were doing. But the Lions said, how much of the thousand dollars do you think you can raise in ticket sales?
And I explained to them, I thought we'd be able to raise it all.
So they underwrote the Utah Shakespearean Festival, the fledgling organization, for up to a thousand dollars that we did not achieve in ticket sales.
Well, it was a dream because we never used any of the Lions money. We didn't need to.
We had over almost 4,000 patrons who came to the play.
We had paid off our thousand dollar bills in the community and we had sufficient money to begin a second season.
And that's been the process with the Utah Shakespeare Festival ever since.
We never have gone into debt.
We have never borrowed money or taken out a loan.
We have spent the money we raised the previous year.
It's meant we grew small.
We grew slowly, but we grew and no chance of bankruptcy or some financial disaster closing us down. Four years later, The Utah Shakespeare Festival hires over 350 employees.
We have a company of 350 drawn from all over the English-speaking world here to work in the summer on the Utah Shakespeare Festival.
In addition to that, we have about 30 full-time staff members. Our budget of $1,000 back in 1962 has grown to a budget of about seven million point two.
It's totally self-generated.
We are not subsidized.
We do not have money from the legislature.
We don't have money from the university.
We are a department in the university but we are totally self-funded, which of course is to our liking because it gives us some autonomy and it also means that we have to deliver.
We have to do the very best work possible because we have to make next year's budget.”
Fred Adams, as told to Jenny Hatch
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