The Festival Experience
Make the most of your Festival Experience by taking part in some or all of our interactive experiences surrounding the plays. Play seminars, play orientations, and displays are free; Words Cubed requires tickets, which can be purchased at the Ticket Office. Backstage Tours and Repertory Magic are not being offered this year. For up-to-date health and safety FAQ, please visit www.bard.org/health-and-safety.
Play Seminars
Share your views with others about Festival plays, their interpretation, and their subtle nuances in these engaging discussions led by theatre experts each morning. Play Seminars for evening performances are conducted the next day at 9 a.m.; for matinee performances, at 10 a.m. Join us in the Balcony Bards Seminar Grove from June 22 to October 9.
🔗 Painted Pony
🔗 Georges Corner Restaurant
Play Orientations
Prepare for the plays with these short and informative orientations conducted by theatre experts—and heighten your experience by learning about the plays before you see them, as well as asking questions about the Festival and Cedar City. Play orientations are scheduled before every play, 1:15 and 6:45 p.m., at the Balcony Bards Seminar Grove.
On Display
The Southern Utah Museum of Art: The Corset: Fashion or Torture?
Tying in closely with the Festival’s production of Intimate Apparel, the Southern Utah Museum of Art (SUMA) this summer will feature “The Corset as Art: Past and Present.”
In each period of costume history, fashionable women have had their bosoms rise and fall along with their waistlines, but in the nineteenth century the waist circumference was constrained to the point of ill health and all for the sake of fashion. Men also wore corsets in the late nineteenth century during the time of the most extreme “tight-lacing.” One account from a London boarding school claimed it was the custom for the students’ waists to be reduced one inch per month until they were considered small enough. A seventeen-year-old student asserted that her waist measured only thirteen inches and noted that one of her peers had an easier time since her mother had corseted her from the age of eight!
In response to the excessive tight-lacing, the Gibson Girl created by Charles Dana Gibson in 1898, became the very symbol for the modern American middle-class girl who went to work and was meant to be natural and athletic; however, that hourglass shape could not be achieved without corsetry. Corset making became a huge cottage industry for women who could buy their own Singer sewing machine with regular payments while creating garments to make a living. Corsetry was a lucrative profession because the construction was extremely precise, and the right corset could be either tolerable or torture.
SUMA is located on the northwest corner of the Beverley Center for the Arts, just steps from the Festival theatres. For more information on SUMA, visit www.suu.edu/suma.
Words Cubed
Discover a new play with Words Cubed (formerly New American Playwrights Project). Nationally-recognized playwrights spend a week at the Festival, and Festival actors and artists present their plays as staged readings, followed by instructive discussions between the playwright, actors, and audience. Play titles are TBA at press time, but readings will be on Aug. 13, 14, 25 and 27 for Play A and August 20, 21, 26, and 28 for Play B. All performances begin at 9:30 a.m. in the Eileen and Allen Anes Studio Theatre. Tickets are \$10 at the Ticket Office. Visit www.bard.org/words-cubed for the latest information.
Important Note: The plays in this series are written for contemporary adult audiences and may contain themes and language not appropriate for children and that some may find offensive.
Gift Shops
Pick up a keepsake, a hat or T-shirt, a trinket, or our 60th Anniversary Souvenir Program at the Randall Gift Shop in the Randall Theatre or the Festival Gift Shop located inside the Engelstad Theatre. Hours of the Randall Gift Shop vary according to the plays in theatre. The Festival Gift Shop in the Engelstad Theatre is open from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Saturday.