{"id":4263,"date":"2026-07-27T16:37:29","date_gmt":"2026-07-27T16:37:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/americanmovershub.com\/?p=4263"},"modified":"2026-07-27T16:37:29","modified_gmt":"2026-07-27T16:37:29","slug":"how-shakespeare-won-the-wild-west-from-pioneers-to-gold-miners-to-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/americanmovershub.com\/?p=4263","title":{"rendered":"How Shakespeare won the Wild West, from pioneers to gold miners to today"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

There is a story that Fred Adams, the late founder of the Utah Shakespeare Festival in Cedar City, was fond of telling: <\/p>\n

Read more \u2018Abysmal high temperatures\u2019 hitting parts of Utah<\/a><\/p>\n

In the early days of Latter-day Saint pioneers settling the West, when Brigham Young sent the first group to settle what would become Iron County, one of the first things that group did upon arriving was put on a production of \u201cThe Merchant of Venice.\u201d <\/p>\n

The idea that the love of William Shakespeare\u2019s works already ran deep in that rural Utah community \u2014 and had since the beginning \u2014 was part of what drove Adams to create the festival. And, 65 years later, it seems that Adams\u2019 belief in the community has borne out: Utah\u2019s Shakespeare festival is one of the most widely respected in the country today. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s certainly true that the early Utah pioneers brought a love of theater (and Shakespeare) with them across the plains. To pay tribute to those early pioneers, Adams made sure to include \u201cThe Merchant of Venice\u201d in the lineup of plays performed during the Utah Shakespeare Festival\u2019s first season in 1962.<\/p>\n

\n
Related<\/div>\n
Here are the plays to look out for at this year\u2019s Utah Shakespeare Festival<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

But Utah wasn\u2019t alone in its love of Shakespeare \u2014 it was widespread across the early days of the rugged West. For everyone from mountain men to gold miners, the Bard\u2019s plays were commonplace entertainment. As Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville observed during his travels through America in the 1830s, \u201cThere is scarcely a pioneer\u2019s hut where one does not encounter some odd volumes of Shakespeare.\u201d<\/p>\n

And that love of Shakespeare continues today: Although Shakespeare festivals can be found across the country, they seem to have a particular hold in the West \u2014 from Ashland, Oregon, to Boulder, Colorado, to Boise, Idaho, and beyond. <\/p>\n

\n

\u201cThere is scarcely a pioneer\u2019s hut where one does not encounter some odd volumes of Shakespeare.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014 \u00a0Alexis de Tocqueville, “Democracy in America” <\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So what was it that drew early Westerners to Shakespeare\u2019s work? And why does the Bard still have such a hold on the West today? <\/p>\n

How Shakespeare festivals got their start in the West<\/h3>\n

When Adams first began his plans to create a Shakespeare festival in Cedar City, he didn\u2019t have to look far for inspiration. Although he did visit festivals in Stratford, Canada, and Connecticut, his biggest influence came from a festival in a rural Western town not entirely unlike Cedar City \u2014 the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland. <\/p>\n

The Oregon festival was already a long-running tradition by the time Adams paid it a visit in 1959. Founded in 1935 by Angus Bowmer, it remains the oldest, and largest, Shakespeare festival in the country today. <\/p>\n

Bowmer and Adams developed a friendship, and Adams learned a lot from Bowmer, incorporating what he learned into his plans for the festival. Around this same time, the Colorado Shakespeare Festival, now the second-oldest in the U.S., was founded in Boulder in 1958; one of its founders, James Sandoe, had previously worked at the Oregon festival and also brought along many familiar practices with him. <\/p>\n

What are some of the common practices that these early festivals (and many, though not all, Shakespeare festivals today) had in common? One was a commitment to repertory theater, meaning performing multiple plays in constant rotation throughout the season instead of one play for a single stretch at a time. <\/p>\n

They also include what\u2019s known as a \u201cgreenshow\u201d \u2014 a casual preshow performance that usually takes place on the lawn outside of the theater and includes music, skits or games. And, of course, an outdoor theater is also an important feature, to try to capture the experience of what it might have been like in Shakespeare\u2019s own Globe Theatre. <\/p>\n

Although there are now Shakespeare festivals all across the country, they are still plentiful in the West. In Boise, the Idaho Shakespeare Festival is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year; and it shares productions with the Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival, which has been running in various forms since the mid-1970s. More recently, Arizona\u2019s Flagstaff Shakespeare Festival was founded in 2015, while the San Francisco Shakespeare Festival provides free \u201cShakespeare in the Park\u201d performances throughout the Bay Area. <\/p>\n

\n
Related<\/div>\n
One man\u2019s dream became iconic Utah Shakespeare Festival<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\u2018Amusement as well as religion\u2019: Theater in early Utah<\/h3>\n

But the stage was set for Shakespeare in the West far earlier \u2014 in fact, from the very beginning of Western settlement. <\/p>\n

\u201cRight from the beginning, when it was the state of Deseret, Brigham Young was promoting quality theater (in Utah),\u201d Adams told the Deseret News in 2014. \u201cI think probably as important as any (reason for founding the festival) was to keep alive this passion that the early settlers had in the arts, in classical music, in classical literature and especially in the writings of William Shakespeare.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why Shakespeare in particular? <\/p>\n

\u201cShakespeare helped tame the West,\u201d Michael Bahr, executive director of the Utah Shakespeare Festival, told the Deseret News. \u201cWhen people came across … there were certain fundamentals that we came with, and Shakespeare and theater was one of those things.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another \u201cfundamental\u201d for the early settlers would have been a different sort of book: the King James Version of the Bible. But, according to Bahr, their familiarity with the Bible likely would have helped their understanding of Shakespeare. King James I not only commissioned the translation of the Bible, but he was also a patron of Shakespeare. \u201cMacbeth\u201d was written in 1606 and is believed to have been written, in part, to appeal to King James\u2019 Scottish heritage; the King James Version of the Bible followed in 1611. So, for settlers already reading regularly from the Bible, it wouldn\u2019t have been a stretch to understand the language of the Bard from the same period.<\/p>\n

Theater in general, though, was important to early Utahns, and to Brigham Young \u2014 Utah\u2019s first governor and president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints \u2014 in particular. \u201cThe people must have amusement as well as religion,\u201d he once said. <\/p>\n

\u201cThese saints are coming into the valley and they\u2019re wanting to create a civilization in the middle of this, and good civilization needs the arts,\u201d Bahr said. \u201cSo we\u2019re going to sing, we\u2019re going to dance, … we\u2019re going to have an orchestra.\u201d<\/p>\n

So when the pioneers first arrived in the Salt Lake Valley, one of the earliest structures they built was called the Bowery, in the block where Temple Square stands in Salt Lake City today. The Bowery was used for religious services but also had a stage that was used for plays. <\/p>\n

Five years later, they built Salt Lake City\u2019s Social Hall, which has been called the first playhouse built west of the Missouri River, and a bust of Shakespeare was placed above the stage to mark it out specifically as a theater. <\/p>\n

\n

\u201cI think probably as important as any (reason for founding the festival) was to keep alive this passion that the early settlers had in the arts, in classical music, in classical literature and especially in the writings of William Shakespeare.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014 \u00a0Fred Adams, founder of the Utah Shakespeare Festival, in 2014<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Though Brigham Young talked about the importance of \u201camusement,\u201d he also believed that theater could help lead to a more \u201cvirtuous\u201d community, saying during the 1862 dedication of the new Salt Lake Theatre, \u201cUpon the stage of a theater can be represented in character, evil and its consequences, good and its happy results and rewards; the weakness and the follies of man, the magnanimity of virtue and the greatness of truth.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Salt Lake Theatre, which replaced the Social Hall, ushered in a heyday of theater \u2014 both from within and outside the Utah community. <\/p>\n

During an 1864 production of \u201cMacbeth,\u201d for example, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir was brought in to sing the parts of the witches. And stars from across the country also performed on the Salt Lake Theatre stage, from Sarah Bernhardt to P.T. Barnum to \u201cBuffalo Bill\u201d Cody. Acclaimed playwright Oscar Wilde even gave a speech at the theater in 1882, though the Deseret News reviewer in attendance was not a fan. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey reveled and cherished their theater and music,\u201d Adams said of early Utahns. <\/p>\n

Shakespeare in \u2018the wilderness\u2019: From mountain men to gold miners<\/h3>\n

But outside of Utah, Shakespeare\u2019s influence was felt throughout the 19th century, too. And while on the East Coast and in the U.K., Shakespeare was increasingly seen as a more high-class form of entertainment, in the West, the Bard\u2019s works remained popular with the masses.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo other writer was so quickly assimilated into the wilderness,\u201d said Shakespeare scholar Ashley Thorndike, according to The Guardian.<\/p>\n

Read more Deseret News archives: Billboard started its \u2018music popularity chart\u2019 in 1940. We\u2019ve been keeping track ever since<\/a><\/p>\n

This popularity meant that Shakespeare appeared in some unlikely places. For example, mountain man and wilderness guide Jim Bridger, the first person of European descent to explore the area of the Great Salt Lake, was determined to read Shakespeare, even though he was illiterate. So he hired a boy to read Shakespeare to him, sometimes for hours at a time, and eventually could quote from his plays at length. <\/p>\n

Shakespeare\u2019s plays were also common entertainment in mining camps during the California Gold Rush, and the miners were \u201cstrikingly knowledgeable about Shakespeare,\u201d UCLA professor Stephen Dickey told Folger Shakespeare Library. <\/p>\n

What\u2019s more, according to Folger, \u201cIt wasn\u2019t unheard of for miners to correct actors\u2019 lines, and an audience wouldn\u2019t hesitate to ask an actor to perform a particular speech again if they really liked it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Interestingly \u2014 especially since the performances in the camps were often more wild and rambunctious than we\u2019re used to today \u2014 the miners\u2019 favorite Shakespeare plays were more often tragedies than comedies. In fact, \u201cRichard III\u201d was \u201cfar and away the most popular play in 19th-century American west,\u201d per The Guardian.<\/p>\n

Movies began to eclipse the popularity of live theater in the 20th century, but Shakespeare quickly became a mainstay in Hollywood, including in Westerns. Films like John Wayne\u2019s \u201cMcLintock!\u201d, Glenn Ford\u2019s \u201cJubal\u201d and Gregory Peck\u2019s \u201cYellow Sky\u201d were all adaptations of Shakespeare plays. <\/p>\n

\u201cIn John Ford\u2019s \u2018My Darling Clementine,\u2019 starring Henry Fonda, the itinerant Shakespearean actor Granville Thorndyke, played by Alan Mowbray, performs \u2018To be or not to be\u2019 to a bar full of desperadoes before grandly declaring that Shakespeare is not \u2018meant for taverns or tavern louts,\u2019 a line that sparks an inevitable gun fight,\u201d according to The Guardian. <\/p>\n

How Western towns helped shape Shakespeare festivals\u2019 success <\/h3>\n

Ashland, home of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, owes its existence to the Gold Rush. Founded in 1855 along the California border, nearly 300 miles from Portland, the remote and rural town seems, at first glance, like an unlikely spot for the country\u2019s first Shakespeare festival. <\/p>\n

But Ashland later became a hub for another important influence: the Chautauqua movement, which brought traveling lecturers and performers to cities and towns all across the country. Rural towns in Utah and other Western states, including Cedar City, were also visited by Chautauqua groups, but Ashland constructed a building specifically for their performances in 1893 and became a hub of culture, attracting the likes of performers such as John Philip Sousa and William Jennings Bryan. <\/p>\n

As the movement began to die out in the 1920s, the building was partially torn down, though its walls were left standing. Angus Bowmer observed similarities between the Chautauqua walls and Elizabethan theaters \u2014 and the idea for a Shakespeare festival was born. <\/p>\n

But it wasn\u2019t all smooth sailing. Bowmer proposed to the city hosting a festival with two plays during Ashland\u2019s Fourth of July celebrations. The town agreed to loan him $400, though it was concerned about getting its money back \u2014 it suggested hosting boxing matches as well as the plays, to bring in more revenue. Bowmer agreed, because he said it was similar to the preshow attractions that might have gone on in Shakespeare\u2019s time. As it turned out, though, the profit from the plays ended up covering the expenses of the boxing matches, and its success led to a second season that turned into an annual tradition. <\/p>\n

Today, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival is still going strong; despite several years of financial struggles starting with the COVID-19 pandemic, it saw significant growth last year \u2014 including a 42% increase in ticket sales from 2024.<\/p>\n

Other Shakespeare festivals across the West have come from similarly humble beginnings to grow into success stories today. In the case of the Idaho Shakespeare Festival, Sara Bruner, artistic director of the festival, told the Deseret News she believes it\u2019s \u201cgrown up\u201d over the years alongside Boise as a city, noting that residents \u201ctake great pride\u201d in the festival. <\/p>\n

\u201cOur first venue was just literally like a little grassy knoll in the middle of downtown,\u201d Bruner said. \u201cThe full budget that first summer was $4,500. And now 50 years later, we have a state-of-the-art outdoor amphitheater that seats 800 people. … So what started out as this really bold idea has just really evolved along with Boise.\u201d <\/p>\n

The Utah festival has gone through a similar growing-up process. Adams took out a $1,000 loan from Cedar City\u2019s local Lions Club to put on three plays for the first full season. By the end of the two-week season, however, they had already made a $2,000 profit, with over 3,000 visitors, setting the festival up for a second season the next year. Now, the festival has a Tony Award and over 100,000 visitors each year. <\/p>\n

Why Shakespeare has stayed \u2018evergreen\u2019 <\/h3>\n

Although Shakespeare\u2019s plays were long seen as popular entertainment in the West, his works have been headed in another direction in more recent years. <\/p>\n

For a variety of reasons, Shakespeare is sometimes viewed in popular culture as being more \u201chigh-brow\u201d or difficult to understand. Where Shakespeare\u2019s plays might once have been the main draw at a festival, they might now be unfamiliar or even intimidating to audiences. <\/p>\n

But that\u2019s also part of the reasons why Shakespeare festivals still exist. <\/p>\n

\n

\u201c(Shakespeare\u2019s) characters, their situations, remain evergreen to us because these are the complex issues of being alive: love, war, power, ambition, hope, loss, death, marriage. These things will be in our lives no matter what, and Shakespeare and the way that the stories are formulated are a safe way for us to examine ourselves and have a little bit of self-reflection.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u2014 \u00a0Sara Bruner, artistic director of the Idaho Shakespeare Festival<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Utah Shakespeare Festival follows what Bahr calls \u201cthe Fred formula,\u201d based on Adams\u2019 preferred way of scheduling plays each season. Every year, they try to perform one of Shakespeare\u2019s comedies, one tragedy, and one of his lesser-known works. For example, this year, the festival is performing \u201cTwelfth Night\u201d (a comedy), \u201cHamlet\u201d (a tragedy) and \u201cTroilus and Cressida,\u201d which is rarely performed. <\/p>\n

Performing the lesser-known plays helps to build \u201can appetite\u201d for them, according to Bahr. <\/p>\n

In fact, Bahr said that he encountered a patron, who visits the festival every year from outside the U.S., who saw \u201cTroilus and Cressida\u201d twice. When Bahr asked him why he was watching it the second time, the man replied, \u201cWhere else am I going to have a chance to see this show?\u201d<\/p>\n

Nearly all Shakespeare festivals, however \u2014 Utah included \u2014 have expanded to include non-Shakespeare plays in their lineup each year. Bahr and Bruner both called these other plays a \u201cgateway\u201d back into Shakespeare for audiences. Musicals, in particular, have been a major draw. <\/p>\n

Musicals are \u201csimpler and more straightforward,\u201d but they\u2019re also \u201can American art form,\u201d Bruner said. \u201cIt\u2019s ours, in a way.\u201d <\/p>\n

And Bahr believes there\u2019s a connection between musicals and Shakespeare that festival performances especially are able to draw out \u2014 the idea of \u201cdirect address\u201d to the audience. Many of Shakespeare\u2019s characters perform monologues where they\u2019re speaking directly to the audience, but musicals, he said, do the same thing. <\/p>\n

\n
Related<\/div>\n
So would Shakespeare give a thumbs-up to the film \u2018Hamnet\u2019? A University of Utah professor\u2019s take<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cWhen we sing to you, we are literally monologuing,\u201d Bahr said. \u201cWe are literally having a conversation with you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Part of what makes live theater special, according to Bruner, is having those moments of connection \u2014 both with the actors, \u201cthe people who have been really, really working hard on something just for you,\u201d and with your fellow audience members. <\/p>\n

\u201cThat communal sense is something that is integral to what we need as human beings,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd theater, live theater, is in the business of creating community every night.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beyond the importance of theater in general, though, there is something unique about Shakespeare that has made him important to audiences in the past and will continue to make him important to audiences in the future. <\/p>\n

\u201c(Shakespeare\u2019s) characters, their situations, remain evergreen to us because these are the complex issues of being alive: love, war, power, ambition, hope, loss, death, marriage,\u201d Bruner said. \u201cThese things will be in our lives no matter what, and Shakespeare and the way that the stories are formulated are a safe way for us to examine ourselves and have a little bit of self-reflection.\u201d <\/p>\n

Read more Opinion: On stages across China, Utah teenagers built connections<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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