For never was a story of more woe

A few friends invited me to join them one weekend in July at the Utah Shakespeare Festival in Cedar City. Up for something new, I blindly accepted their offer and told them to just get me tickets to whatever shows they were seeing. Three days before our trip I learned:

1. The Utah Shakespeare Festival isn't just a one weekend local community theatre event in small town Southern Utah. The Festival actually features eight different shows from June to October, is in it's 49th year and is Tony Award winning.
2. There is an outdoor theatre replica of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre.
3. I was going to see Romeo & Juliet, Noises Off! and A Midsummer's Night Dream.
4. Cedar City is actually four hours away, not two.

Clearly I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

But it ended up being a really fun weekend. Road trip chatting. A beautiful scenic drive (and "hike") around Cedar Breaks National Park and Brian Head (Again, who knew that Brian Head was in Southern Utah? I always thought it was north by/in Idaho.). I was quite impressed by Romeo & Juliet, and Noises Off! was entertaining. And probably most importantly, people that attend Shakespeare Festivals make for really, really fun people watching.