Fred C. Adams is the founder of the Shakespearean festival in Cedar City. This festival has won awards as the best Shakespearean Festival there is. I highly recommend it. I am not trying to sound pompous by saying I went, the only way I went was because my aunt needed a chauffeur and she likes me.
If any one is interested we went with a travel for less group that is run by Mormons and that is mostly comprised of Mormon travelers. It is a lot of old people but for about eight hundred (per person) we had a hotel room with two queen size beds for 5 days, we had tickets to all 6 shows, had lectures about the shows before we went to the shows by Micheal Wilcox, all our meals provided, a tour of the stages, a lecture by Mr. Adams and a answer question time with two of the more significant actors. It was a good deal!
He grew up in a small town in Idaho, went to school here at BYU. After graduating he went to New York to start his acting career but did not like the big city so he moved to the smaller town of Cedar City and eventually started the Shakespearean festival in 1961. It was a rickety stage and only two shows a weekend when the festival first opened. Now there are three theaters and always six shows running throughout the summer. And in 2000 they won a Tony for their performances. At first when they were approached about the Tony he did not believe it and thought it was a prank so he hung up on the man calling to inform him of the awarding. They are currently working on revamping the outdoor theater. They are going to encase the building in glass so that the weather will not be a problem however they are also going to put greenery and a river within the glass encasing. The following is a quote I liked of his:
"Many years ago, my grandfather had a small orchard. When he was 86 or 87, he planted an apple tree. His daughter said he would never see it bear fruit, but he replied that 'my grandchildren will."'
The point of this post is that the twitter interaction with Shakespeare experts reminded me of the lecture with Mr. Adams. He told us a story about what some people believed to be the way that Shakespeare died. It is not know how he died but personally I like this story. Mr. Adams said that the bard died drinking in a bar with his friends. He said the cause was the he choked on his drink while laughing at a dirty joke.
Personally I like Mr. Adams version of the great mans death, however, here is some more information on the matter. Most websites say that he caught a fever after drinking to much with his fellow play writes Ben Johnson and Michael Drayton. It is also said that he died on April 23, 1616 at the age of 52. Some people believe that he was also born on April 23. He had retired from play writing a few years earlier.
