05/03/2018: It's Time For Shakespeare
In this week’s episode, Lynn sits down with Tyler Morgan, the Director of Marketing for the Utah Shakespeare Festival. Together, they preview all of the productions for the 2018 Season of the festival!
Transcript
[00:00:02] Hey everyone. This is Lynn Vartan and you are listening to the apex hour on KSUU Thunder ninety one point one. In this show you get more personal time with the guests who visit Southern Utah University from all over. Learning more about their stories and opinions beyond their presentations on stage. We will also give you some new music to listen to and hope to turn you on to new genres. You can find us here every Thursday at 3:00 p.m. on the web at suu.edu/apex or email us at suuapex@icloud.com. But for now welcome to this week's show here thunder ninety one point one
[00:00:47] Hey everyone. It is a Thursday and it's 3:00 p.m. and that means it must be the apex hour. This is Lynn Vartan your host for the APEX hour. And this is again one of our summer editions of the apex hour. Normally during the semester as you know we're here every week but now that it's summertime actually graduation is tomorrow here at Southern Utah University. We're kind of on a bi weekly format talking to you about all kinds of interesting topics that might be cool for you for the summer. So last time we talked about books and everything that was turning us off aren't turning us on about books for the summer and said this week we're delving into our world famous Utah Shakespeare Festival. I'm so excited about the summer season so I thought I'd reach out to the festival and see if we could have a talk about the season to come. So I'd like to welcome to the stage Tyler Morgan.
[00:01:46] Well thanks for having me. Thanks so much for being here. Well to start, Tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do for the Utah Shakespeare Festival.
[00:01:55] Certainly first I'd like to note as as we are talking about things I have been here at SUUs for a total of two months. Welcome to Utah. Well I've been in Utah but Southern Utah OK actually came down from up in Davis County up in Bountiful but I've been with the Shakespeare Festival for two months. I am the new director of marketing and communications with the festival. Congratulations. Absolutely happy to be here love Cedar City. Love the area. I'm a big outdoor outdoors nut and so I couldn't be happier. He couldn't have found a better place. We're so lucky here with our outdoor everything really. Absolutely. Add to that an outdoor theater and you got the perfect mix for me. So for anybody who isn't familiar with the festival we have some brand new facilities now only a year old so this is the second season. This is two years old so the Beverly Center for the Arts was was was open was dedicated in 2016. All right. That was the inaugural season. We also had plays last year so this will be the third year at the Beverly center. Very excited and that's so exciting. So how many theaters and how many shows just give us a little overview. Certainly.
[00:03:09] Well the Utah Shakespeare Festival is very unique in that we are I mean you'll hear in other other theater companies names oh we're the you know the Indiana Repertory Theater and repertory is used to mean the overall body of work that access we actually perform in a rotating repertory which is a very different thing. We actually we bring in all of the actors all at once and we perform you know six to eight plays simultaneously in three different venues. Right. So three venues six different shows and all the actors come at the same time they all come at the same time. Now we do have a slightly different fall schedule where we'll add in a show in the fall and so the timing in which some actors come maybe later for those but generally almost all of our almost all of our company members are in multiple productions so they're not you so you might see the same the same actor as a character in one production you know and or and in another as well. So the magic that happens and the amount of work that goes into planning and preparing and scheduling for this whole company to be able to perform all of these plays simultaneously is quite amazing.
[00:04:23] That's the coolest thing. I mean do you know and you may not know. How did they manage the rehearsal schedule with people. It just seems I'm such an organizational freak that for me to manage this person needing to be in three different places at once is crazy.
[00:04:39] It is. And we you know we we were trying to embrace technology more at the festival and we use a software called prepared to help with that. And what's really neat. Our production director Becky Marid amazing she handles all of this calendaring of of facilities you know use for rehearsal schedules and everything as well as the actual company members not but not. And what's important is not just about the actors it's also all of the crew. You got all the stage crew and the designers and they all have to be scheduled. And she does an absolutely incredible job doing this. I peeked in in her office a couple of times and been absolutely flabbergasted by what she knows. I got to check that out. I'm in awe. I love it. I mean just the pieces that were now. So approximately how many actors are involved in a typical summer season. Well actors alone. That's a good question. I would say our overall company actually swells to about 300 strong. Oh that's. You know. And what's great is there are going to be here in just a couple of weeks. May 14th is our is where it welcoming the entire entire company. Yeah. Some have already arrived early particularly our designers and some of our carpenters things like they've already arrived. But the whole company will will be here on May 14th. We're really excited about that.
[00:05:55] Is there an opening social or
[00:05:57] As matter. Well we do for the company. So we have some meetings they need to go over protocol as the marketing director I talk about our social media strategy games like that. But we have a welcome tent. And so we've got food and and and really we want to welcome their welcome them here because it's not just about having that many many of these actors because we have more equity contracts. We have more professional actors that work here at the festival than any other venue in the state of Utah including Piner Theatre Company and the like. And so we really want to introduce them also to the amazing place that Southern Utah is and so so in addition to welcome them to the company want to welcome to Cedar City to Iron County and the like. And that's so we have a kind of an opening social.
[00:06:40] I love it. That's so cool, for anybody who doesn't know. Can you tell us a little bit about what and what it means to be an Equity actor what does that mean for you. I mean many people know that some of our audience might not know what that is.
[00:06:55] That's a good point. Equity is so the the Actors Equity Association is the union for professional theater professionals in America. This will include equity contracts are not only actors but also directors stage managers and the like. All are under the umbrella of equity and in order to get to you know proclaim yourself a professional theater and there are very there are different levels of contracts that you have. I believe this year we've got well over 20 equity contracts this year across all of our company which again is very high for this region and it's we're really excited because it it really speaks to the level of the theatrical experience that our audience gets to gets to participate in and
[00:07:45] How how do you know. I mean is it a budgetary thing to find out how many of such things you can get or do directors say how does it how does that number come to be if you can share.
[00:07:57] Well well obviously budget budgetary issues come come and play it also. The number of productions that you're doing right and determine the levels of the contracts you can actually sign because we signed the contracts with the union itself. Oh so there's yeah it's called the lord contract it's there. I'm not going to get in the weeds here. But basically it's all connected with you know with your overall operations what you plan to do and everything that determine the way that the union has it has the contract set up I will call that fall very interesting and I was sort of wondering about that. Yeah and because we're rotating rep because the way we do it we need more.
[00:08:31] You can have more and that's so great. Oh my gosh. Well what about for you on a day to day what what's kind of your typical day in the life.
[00:08:41] That's a really good question seeing as I've only been here two months and so I don't think I've had a typical day yet to be honest with you. Now I will say this. Growing up I did grow up in northern Utah. I've been down there I've I've experienced the festival as a patron for many years and loved it just loved it. There's a couple of performances in particular stick in my mind in 2013. I was with one of my daughters and it performs the tempest in the middle of an actual tempest which was absolutely electrifying literally and figuratively. I was amazed that I could talk about that production for hours because I just loved it so much. But my typical day I mean as a marketing director I'd love to say that was really glamorous but to be honest most of what I am what I've been doing since I arrived has been signing contracts with media partners. We do a lot of partnerships with various media entities for advertising purposes. And usually those contracts are a little bit more complicated because they involve a certain amount of trade because there's a certain level of sponsorship they provide to us for the actual cash outlay of advertising needs to happen.
[00:09:49] That's really cool. I mean so you're kind of doing all the moving and shaking to get the word out.
[00:09:55] Well it's kind of funny because Michael Barr who's our education director always saying well you know my well he is an amazing man and he's funny. I I come in and he started laughing and it's like Tyler you're going to have to make us all wear ties. What's going on and I'm like Michael I wear a tie so you don't have to. So funny which is really how I see it. I love the arts I have a large background the arts but I also have a very long history in corporate America. And I'm trying to bring a lot of my corporate experience into into this artistic arena to try to really elevate the level of marketing that the festival is doing so that we can provide though the level of theory that we have in the past and continue and even improve in the future.
[00:10:41] That's fantastic. Would you say that you have any new strategies or sort of new particular visions that you're bringing that you'd like to share.
[00:10:53] Oh sure. This is this is interesting I I'm happy to pull back the curtain a little bit. You know you pay no attention to the man you no actually. Now the modern marketing techniques are all about data driven marketing. It's about using data and your marketing. So you better understand the marketing spend traditionally so much of it has been behavioral spin to where you know you're making a lot of suppositions and you are you know spending money in different in through different marketing channels you're trying to target but the only way that you can really target is by either choosing your channel or that particular media partner you've worked with whether it's a television or radio or so on they'll say they'll tell you our audience is X and right. Okay well that is the audience I want and so you go there and you don't have a chance to target further out. You know within that audience so really digital marketing and social media marketing has drastically changed the face of the way that the traditional marketing has happened and a lot of arts organizations that want to continue to do well need to start to adapt to the new digital landscape. So one of the biggest things we're doing is actually for 2018 I cut all of our television spend. Oh wow I can't track that. I have no data to so. So from PBL to cable to network we're not spending any money on actual broadcast television. We're still doing some radio but not not television I can't track that. And it was one of our biggest line items right. I see. I've taken all of that money and applied it directly towards digital and social media marketing that I can track and have complete control over. I can I can tell exactly how much money was spent towards very specific very targeted audiences. Yeah and actually see the results of that because I can I can follow them all the way back right to a purchase. All right or in marketing I would call a conversion. Yeah. So and and I can understand how this might scare a lot of people at the University or in general because Big Brother is a real thing when it comes to market intelligence. I am a certified expert in marketing automation systems Marcano part art and so on. And the way in which you are tracked digitally is unprecedented I mean it's Orwellian really as I say and in a lot of ways. Oh you know it's like including I mean everybody has a wearable right. Fitness devices the amount of information you're providing you have no idea how much information you're actually providing. It's there are massive amounts of information you're actually providing to be able to create what's known as a persona before what you'd have as you have a demographic. So right. For instance I would look at somebodies demographics and their psychographics. But what you now have was demographics psychographics and actual measurable behavioral data. You put that together and it's called the persona I see. And so what I'm what we're able to do now is at the festival is we're taking all of the years of data that we have on our patrons putting that in you know a more sophisticated data modeling systems to be able to determine our actual personas of our targets. Oh cool. So that's that that's a no rush but basically our biggest things are more more social media more digital advertising to really and ultimately that's going also a new audience which is what we're looking for as well. It's great to hear the changes and adjustments and the theories and strategies behind it and I'm really excited for the festival to be delving into this new were not new but just refining there for us. Yeah which is great.
[00:14:42] Cool well I think it's time to take our first musical break. So I'm I've got some new music for you. Well some of it's new and some of it from some familiar suspects. I ran across a song that's been recorded by Fiona Apple but it's actually on a lullaby album. It's the hopes and dreams Lullaby Project and it's kind of interesting to hear her sing a lullaby. So the song is called I can't wait to meet you and the artist is Fiona Apple and it's the hopes and dreams Lullaby Project and you're listening to KSUU thunder ninety one point one.
[00:17:11] All right well welcome back. That was Fiona Apple and the song is called I can't wait to meet you. And yes it was actually Fiona Apple. That album is called the hopes and dreams Lullaby Project and it's all lullabies you know by different artists and that one particularly stuck out to me as being kind of special. You are listening to KSUU thunder ninety one point one. This is Lynn Vartan and this is the apex hour. I'm in the studio with Tyler Morgan who is the marketing director for the Utah Shakespeare Festival. Welcome back. Glad to be here. All right so we talked about you we talked about new directions in marketing. We talked about how awesome it actually the festival is and how it really sticks in people's hearts. Let's talk about the season. Yeah if I didn't talk about the product I'd be a bad marketing director. Well yeah we definitely should get to the shows. So the first thing is is that it's it's a lot of Shakespeare but not 100 percent Shakespeare. That's right. We were very adamant that while we do present Shakespeare we also want to be able to present American classics as well as musical theater. That's something we always have a musical each year.
[00:18:25] Oh great. And what is this year's musical. This year's musical is big river. Oh cool. Tell me about it.
[00:18:31] Oh my. So we're really excited and really to talk about big river. I think we have to talk about the overall theme of the season. Oh great. So a lot of the season is about you know the concept of tolerance and the other. So if you look across across from the Merchant of Venice you know where you got you know Shylock and the way he has a foreigner's treated. We actually have the comedy the foreigner you know big river and Illiad you know which talks about war and how each side sees the other as as the other and the foreigners and outsiders Othello all of these. All of these shows deal with very very strong themes of intolerance of of you know how do you how do you deal with and how do you not deal with individuals who are different from you. Right. And so with Big River Big River is you know the school center and story of Huckleberry Finn. OK. And you know you've got Huck Finn major character and you also have you know Jim. Jim's a runaway slave this whole story is about Jim running away right. Getting on the river heading down the river trying to get to freedom. OK you know and and looking out and thinking and Huck's whole perceptions of Jim as he sees him first as a slave as a black man and ultimately as a friend and almost father figure how that changes throughout the course of the play is very important. And it's a wonderful play with incredible music.
[00:20:00] What was that written.
[00:20:02] You know I was no no that's great. I don't know how it started yes and that's ok we can look it up.
[00:20:07] I was just sort of curious because you know when that time period we were just talking about in fact on last the last radio show with Jason Sander. He happened to be reading Huckleberry Finn. I asked him what are you reading right now and Huckleberry Finn was the answer. So for those of you who maybe picked up Huckleberry Finn based on last on the last show you definitely want to check out Big River which is based off of the Mark Twain classic. It looks like it runs from June 30th to September 1st. Those are the dates of that production.
[00:20:42] It does. Now think think Google. I didn't know I was going to be have a quiz here sorry 1985. Oh ok. Broadway production ran for more than a thousand performances. It really is amazing the music in it. You know much love music bluegrass and country styles.
[00:20:58] Oh my God. And where the musicians do you know where the musicians are coming from is it a set group is it a pit orchestra.
[00:21:06] It will be. It will be a pit orchestra. This is being presented in the Randol theater. OK. So are musicals are generally in the Randall theme which is what it was when our indoor theaters about well over 700 seats. But it does have an orchestra. Great musicians will be all right.
[00:21:22] So the musical for this season is big river based on the mark twain story particularly about Huck Finn and Jim. So definitely be on the look out for that one and let's get into a few of this Shakespeare show. I mean many people are familiar with the Merchant of Venice but are for anybody who might not be if you could give us just a little taste of what that's going to be like.
[00:21:48] So Merchant of Venice and it's going to be particularly different this year also. So again around this whole theme of tolerance and I probably can't speak to this as well as our artistic director Brian Vaughn could. But the casting for this play is also centered around this whole theme of tolerance. We have chosen for the whole season as well and it's really hard to do in Shakespeare generally. But when you think about representation and you think about the way that way that you know the roles are even available in Shakespeare it's heavily weighted on the male side. You're right. Our cast this year is that it's been like our overall company our cast is almost 50/50 male female ratings and this year the roles of Shylock and Antonio should be performed by females. How but they will be playing the characters as male. I see. Which is interesting some people worry about this but if you know anything about Shakespeare you realize that cross-dressing is just part of most of his play. Yeah I mean even in the traditional the traditional playing of The Merchant of Venice. Porsche is actually cross-dressing as a man. But let's talk about the play itself. The play deals with intolerance but also deals with the concepts of mercy and justice. You have Antonio who's a merchant in Venice. And you have Shylock who's also merge and he's a very much a moneylender will Antonio you know there's a lot of antagonism between the two because of religious differences. Shylock is a Jew. Antonio is part of the Christian base in Venice which is the largest you know largest group as a Jew Shylock is considered a foreigner he's not actually considered an actual citizen of Venice. Right. This is really important to remember as the play goes along well. Antonio's best friend Bassanio is in love with this woman named Portia and Portia is. It has been constrained by her father's edicts that she can only that she has very specific directions about who she can marry and have to pass various tests you know and which is an interesting concept. But Antonio goes on to help him. You know he passes the test wins the heart of a Porsche which is just great. But then. But Antonio in in wanting to increase his you know his holdings his money his power. He makes a deal with he has to be able borrow money for the ships the sending out and really the crisis of the play comes about when the ship sank and he doesn't have the money to pay back because the whole terms of the agreement are pretty severe. I don't want to get I'm not going to give too much away but the transition is severe and this really comes into play about in terms of mercy and justice and what they mean and how they work together and against each other and what's really great is every single production of The Merchant of Venice deals with this play between mercy and justice. Differently right. As a matter of fact and that's one of the exciting things about it. But the back to the casting no choosing to have it having females play these male roles. Adds further weight to the to the nature of this conversation of a foreigner you know and marginalized voices and I said I probably can't speak to it as well as as Brian or Melinda Melinda will be directing. But what's interesting to me is is that you have not only Shylock I mean it's one thing to stop Shylock who's on the one side of the argument if you will played as a female but you also have an Antonio who's on the other side of the argument also played as female which I think is a very brave thing to do and interesting because I think you know it plays off that it's not. This isn't about things it's not about gender. It's not about ratings it's actually about the story and the characters and the humanity that's brought to it and how that you know and how it can be highlighted by a slightly different casting I think it's really exciting and I hope that everyone has a chance to see this particular production because it's going to be very unique and it's interesting in our in our in our casting announcement we've already gotten a lot of interesting comments some some divisive but otherwise you know that we've tried to respond saying you know this is about the characters and this you know unfortunately you know with the Internet and other things as polarizing as things can be this is not meant to be a polarizing productions. Actually that's almost the point it's like you're missing the point of why we're doing this right.
[00:26:23] Right. That's I can't wait. That's really exciting. That must be a really tricky aspect of things especially you know in today's age. I mean you make these creative decisions about how you watched this show and production to go and then you put it out there and announce it and you have an audience that is very dedicated to the festival and comes year after year after year and probably feels very emblazon to speak about.
[00:26:54] There's a lot of there's a lot of ownership. When you look at a festival like this and Shakespeare you do a lot of tradition a lot of new and this is this is where the arts where it's fascinating to me. And I will tell you you know in my role at the festival as marketing director I have to I have to take the business side of the argument between the business necessity and the you know or the artistic side. And what's interesting is with you know the festivals are fifty seventh year so you don't like people very much invested and there's a lot of ownership there right. And quite honestly there's been a lot of change at the festival from our new facilities to leadership changes and everything that can leave a lot of people you know even when you are planning for it Managing Change is difficult. Yes because people can easily feel that that change is happening to them right rather than that they are a part of that change and one of the big messages that we are trying to say with this season as with others is that no we want everyone to belong and be part of that change and part of what we've got coming up and trying to communicate that obviously you know that's part of what the marketing director has to try and do.
[00:28:01] Yeah right. What a great sentiment for the season. I think that's really wonderful.
[00:28:06] I think so too and I think that you know we've got the right productions to do that in the right the right people to to to really pull that off and to share that. My job is to really try to share to take what the amazing things they're doing and really get the story to tell a story. Yeah and you know with with this really dedicated group you know we've got we so we have our Ingolstadt theatre which is our open air in the summer recreation of the Globe Theatre that we've course added wonderful things on to actually have a proper back stage now and lobby and everything so it looks really huge but you know inside it still feels very intimate. Yes. But you've got individuals that want to come and they want to see the Shakespeare plays in Elizabethan dress in there. They want the experience of it being a static snapshot of time right which isn't necessarily conducive to the artistic you know you know vision and furthering things forward and ideas and so on which is the artistic process. And so we have to find this balance between being able to push you know the new to get new ideas out there and back but really that's what theatre is it's about creating community and and understanding your community speaking to them and helping you know they educate us while we educate them and that's the thing that that's important to note is that we don't want this to be a one way conversation with them where we're going to just feed you these plays but rather we want that kind of discussion interaction
[00:29:30] That sounds great. Well I think it's time for another musical break. And the next song that I have for you is a song called Baker Lake and The Artist is Sarah Kahun and the album is called the Florida string sessions. So you can check that out. And again this is the apex hour KSUU thunder ninety one point
[00:33:50] Well welcome back to the APEX hour. My name is Lynn Vartan you're listening to KSUU thunder ninety one point one today. We are talking all about Shakespeare and I'd like to welcome back Tyler Morgan to our marketing director for the Utah Shakespeare Festival.
[00:34:07] I'm happy to be here to talk about our festival. All right well let's continue to talk about the festival. We talked about the musical which is big river. We talked a little bit about Merchant of Venice but there are I think three other Shakespeare plays Merry Wives of Windsor Othello and Henry the Fifth part why Henry the Sixth Henry 6 Part 1. Sorry about that. Would you like to talk about anyone that jumps out or however you like to go all the Merry Wives of Windsor is is a fun one that's a fun comedy where you've got the legendary character of Sir John Falstaff who this play was actually written specifically around this character because he was a favorite Shakespearean character for Queen Elizabeth herself. Oh absolutely loved John Falstaff and he wrote this play specifically for her. I didn't go to this ridiculous character so that's great. So it's just it's a fun fun thing where the pranks played on this care. It's it's just fun and delightful. I do wanna talk about Othello as we were a few things. This production of Othello is going to be different than than what we've done in the past. Tell me about it particularly it's setting it is in the ANES theatre now the ANES is our studio Theora blackbox their seats about 200. So one of the smaller and smaller and so what you have is is our angle stat which seats about 900 right. Randall theater seats about 700 and the ángeles it's about 200 k. Now the artist in me loves the fact that Othello is going to be in this small theatre because the intimate nature of the villainy that happens in this house is incredible and because to me Iago is fascinating by the way Iago will be played by our own Brian Vaughan Oh Granges really really exciting. That's why he's growing a beard just for Iago.
[00:35:49] Fantastic. So our community here will know to be on the lookout for that because we know him well
[00:35:55] Absolutely well Iago you know is constantly talking specifically to the audience throughout the play right. He's he's got these monologues that he is talking to the audience. But as the audience you don't get to talk back to him you can't say anything to Othello or just when you can't say anything to them. So you're silently complicit partner in Iago's villainy. It's a very uncomfortable situation. It's a powerful play and it's an uncomfortable situation because you are part of it because you're like wait a minute I want to be on your side. You're making me a part of this only part of. That's right. And it's in that sort of intimate setting it makes it really real how intense so it'll be. It'll be very intense. Now this is one of Shakespeare's more popular plays that's what I was going to say. It really gets that that this is the issue Othello is we've already have many sold out shows already as well as many that have very limited tickets left. OK. So we have what's going to be difficult is that we will not be you know the way in which we'll be seeding Othello it's going to be very difficult for people to get tickets.
[00:37:06] All right. So you've heard it here. You need to get those tickets for Othello now because it's going to be extremely difficult if not impossible to get them later and the that you will need to get the tickets now.
[00:37:19] It's it's we plan on there being many sold out performances and we're probably will have to turn people away at the door which is sad. Like I said the artist in me loves the idea the market to me is like ah you want to sell more tickets to this thing right. Right. But so yes get your tickets now. Call her box office. Get online go to Barcott org and get get your tickets for Othello now because they will solo.
[00:37:43] And just to reemphasize Bard dot org is one of the best ways to get tickets or call the ticket office.
[00:37:50] We definitely would like you to go online. It's self serve it's straightforward and easy. If you have special requests needs or looking for particular discounts definitely color box office we've got them the best people you know though that run our ticket office in talking about discounts. I do want to talk about her student access I'd like to talk about it right now because in dealing with Othello's actually important because Othello is exempted from the student access card I see program this year so nexus Cardie spend forty dollars for this card. Just for 40 dollar 40 bucks for the card gives you access to every show except Othello sorry not except Othello. And that's again because of demand is right. But what you do is is that you know you. You called the morning of. And if there are open seats you've got a ticket so you can go to as many shows as many times as you want throughout the summer throughout the season with these two segments. So for 40 dollars and this is a valid student I.D. We highly recommend you said graduation is coming up tomorrow. Right. Yes. As a graduation gift you can purchase the tickets now and then you just redeem them as you as you 10 for high school seniors that may be coming to college. You know if you are here in Cedar as a student and again any student age you know whether it's you know junior high high school college a current valid student I.D. we'll let you use the student access card and you pay 40 dollars for the day and then call the morning of whenever you want to see so whenever you want to see something. As many times as you want. As many times as you want except for Othello.
[00:39:30] That's amazing. Oh my gosh. So I hope our audience members will take advantage of that. That sounds like an incredible deal. So it can be as you said high school students college students met middle school students just a valid since 1990. And how do they where do they find that on the Web site for the student access card you would go to the Web site and look that up under a discount you can definitely call our our box office as well to be able to access to get all that but you can they're on sale right now. You can purchase them right now. OK and it's called student access to an access card. Forty dollars.
[00:40:04] Great. And the Web site is a great way but I think I also heard that there may be a new app coming out.
[00:40:11] Oh yes yes so one thing that's really exciting is and it should be within this week in fact because we just submitted the app for publishing. But there will be a full feature mobile app for the festival this year.
[00:40:24] Fantastic. Oh my gosh. And so we can start looking for that as it's going in this week but probably beginning of next week if people want to find.
[00:40:33] And yes we are actually going to be we're going to be there's been a lot of advertising around this pushing this letting everybody know that hey we've got an app now. So. So look for the announcements that came announcements in once you see those but it's for publishing. We've already announced that we will have an app in our gala so I feel comfortable telling you that it will. We will have one it will be there. We're we're what's available in this app is going to be significant. You can. You'll actually be able to purchase tickets through the app as well as get all the information you need all basically everything that would be in the really big thick seasoned brochure. I'm calendar actually daily schedule events because in addition to the actual shows that we have you know Henry the Sixth and Merry Wives and so on. We have much more in our schedule each day. We've got play Oriente starting at 9:00. Almost everyday we have play orientations we've got props or costume workshops we've got backstage tours we've got all sorts things you can play out with the app you can actually look through and plan your entire day in your intro.
[00:41:31] That's amazing. So anybody planning to travel to the area right within the app you can find oh I want to check this out today or tomorrow at 11:00 there's going to be a costume workshop or something. So there's a lot of other things in addition to just going to the productions.
[00:41:46] Absolutely. And we also within the app we've we've set specific tabs for you for sumo which is you know the Southern Utah Museum of Art. Great because and they will actually CYMA will have through this season they will have an Othello exhibit homes were already there throughout the summer as part of their as part of their offerings which is which is really exciting.
[00:42:06] So all of the locations everything will be sorted by tab you can buy your tickets for that evening so you really can kind of manage everything you want to do.
[00:42:15] And there are a few extra features working on them not ready to announce yet but they're going to make your state even more fun. But I will I'll give you one of the ones on hand as we're trying to work on some selfies scavenger hunt. Oh my God. We want to make this more interactive a more participatory experience while you're onsite at the Beverly Center. Oh my gosh that sounds really fun.
[00:42:36] I can't wait. Well that's exciting. I'll be on the lookout for sure. Well let's get back to this shows. We've talked about several of the Shakespeare shows but I'm really curious about some of the other shows. You know for example the foreigner. That seems like a really interesting and unusual show that maybe a lot of people don't know about.
[00:42:56] Right. The foreigner is actually a comedy comedy. It's to give an overall plot the main character is is very socially awkward or inept if you will and he has to try. He wants to try to have people leave him alone. He just doesn't like dealing with other people and to deal. And I understand that sentiment sometimes he adopts a you know persona of being actual a foreigner you know being angry and and instead of driving people away you can imagine it does the opposite. So think about having to hide the fact that he's not afforded while everybody is fascinated intrigued by him because he is and so on and it's it's a very interesting and individuals that end up that hate him because he's a foreigner. It's all of these things thrown into it's it's just a fun interesting play and really really worth worth the time
[00:43:46] And is that a fairly new show.
[00:43:49] No it's been around for a while. Here I am asking you about dates again sorry.
[00:43:54] No no no that's OK.
[00:43:56] But that's cool. That sounds really really interesting and also very funny. Yeah.
[00:44:02] So it really fits into our theme but it deals with that in a in a lighthearted way that I think sometimes laughter allows us to examine those things just every bit as much as something that's heavier for sure. Okay and then how about a couple of these others. Well Eliot for example I mean a familiar story to all
[00:44:20] But what's this production going to be like.
[00:44:22] So an Iliad is a one man show. Oh it is. And it is Brian Vaughn is doing a one man show as an Iliad now and Eliad is interesting because this one man. There's only a couple. There are a few characters in this the first the main character is the poet. All right. Well and while it's not the whole story of the Iliad you know it is definitely you know the story of you know Agamemnon and Achilles and so on. And I had the chance to see Brian Vaughn deliver just a snippet of this at our Las Vegas gala and there's an amazing cadence to it and a rhythm to it that really fits in with the style of the piece. And you Achilles and Agamemnon going back and forth at each other. And then Brian breaks out of it back to the to the persona of the player you know the poet. Wow and everyone takes a collective gasp and a breath and it's like there's a cames and a rhythm to it's fascinating. And again it's looking at addressing the whole idea of wars and we see how you know you I have this this war going on and the way in which that forces each side to look at each other and the joy
[00:45:29] It's fascinating Oh I had no idea that that was the production. I'm completely transfixed. Now that sounds great.
[00:45:37] And how about there's a couple of others that I'm really curious about. Oh yeah. Pearls in the House and also the liar. What can you tell me about that.
[00:45:45] So our fall season so pearls in the house really excited about pearls in the house is a an outcropping of one of our words cubed place words Cubie is the new the new name for our new play program. So formerly it was known as the new American playwrights project. Right. And we change that to words cubed because rather than just because anything about words words words is is actually a quote from Shakespeare. Right. And so with words cubed project last year you know we were shows are workshopped and run through and figured out and and what came about as Pearl's in the House which is exciting and there's there's going to be some amazing musical. This is about the life of Pearl Bailey. Right. And again we talk about intolerance and things like that I mean she actually became you know you know from from her humble beginning she became probably the most popular performers in the White House. There were several presidents just loved her music and wanted her there at The White House so you know how did she gain that sort of a voice right. An interesting you know story an interesting journey right that that I think again fits in with our theme of our of our season really well but also you know just really highlights one of the most amazing performers and musicians in American history.
[00:47:03] I know I'm excited for that. So this project was workshopped last year. And so it was sort of in development.
[00:47:12] It's been and has been in development for a while and workshop so this is what's exciting. This is the this is actually the world premiere of it being fully you know perform so we're very excited about it.
[00:47:24] That's exciting. I mean and this project I mean this this workshopping play the previous year and then showing it the next year so there's probably going to be another one that's in workshop and then I mean this is something that keeps folding over from year to year.
[00:47:40] It can. It all depends on what comes out of ice cube so obviously when you're just like with just like with a new business or a new play you know whenever you're workshopping something something's work really well something's don't. And what's exciting is when something does click like this does yeah.
[00:47:56] And who participates in this. Is it a specific group or how does that.
[00:48:02] Well I I it's difficult it depends and it changes. But it's basically the festival really supports this whole program and I know Brian Vaughan is closely associated with it as well as several other staff members help to try to facilitate it. I see but but. But this whole workshop includes the you know writers and directors get together and go and go through this process
[00:48:28] So it's kind of an incubator it sounds like very much let me see what happens. All right exactly.
[00:48:33] And when some people come with very very distinct ideas and they just want to workshop that idea to get it to fruition some people come to them are open. So that's that's the neat thing a neat thing about this but as I said I've been here over two months and there's a lot that I know there's a lot that I don't know.
[00:48:48] Well we appreciate all the knowledge you're bringing.
[00:48:50] There's a lot I don't know that I don't know.
[00:48:54] Well we're so thrilled for all everything that you've brought to us so far today. We have one more show that I'm really curious about. This is also one of the fall shows Pearl's in the House and The liar are both fall productions. And this the Liar seems kind of playful and fun or something.
[00:49:13] This is where this gets interesting. So this is one of our fall shows. It is a comedy. So basically the main character he cannot tell the truth but his servant can't lie. So it just that just that single premise. All right. All of a sudden you get this incredible interplay and that's all you think about that's the whole idea of the primary path where a man who can't tell the truth can't lie. The types of troubles and the problems that come about because of that and it's really I mean it's pretty much a French farce. It's a hole that I can't think of any other way to say it is a farce. Well that fans were fired. Oh yeah well. If you think about it when you think about trying to balance out a season you know you look at an Iliad well other moments to laugh a lot of things to cry and you know Othello is serious and dark. You know we're being very serious about Merchant of Venice. I mean a lot of ways. Henry the six part one it's a history the history is are always history right. You know although it's interesting that it's called Henry the six part when it really should be called Joan of Arc. You know again. But you got the heavy stuff you need something light and fun. And we we've got a lot of fun farce to you know at the end of our season to drag around things nicely
[00:50:29] Well on that note I have one more song to play you and this is not on the sunny side of things. We lost one of the great artists that the Swedish DJ Avicii. And just to kind of honor this. I mean he's he's now been gone a couple of months. But just to kind of honor him this is one of his sort of most famous songs wake me up. And again this is the apex are KSUU thunder ninety one point one.
[00:50:56] All right well welcome back to the apex hour. This is Lynn Vartan. And we have been talking about Shakespeare. I'm here in the studio with Tyler Morgan and I told him our last little break for the week is always kind of this what's turning you on this week. It's that what's making you happy and it can be anything really. It's just sort of for everybody to get turned on to new things so it could be a podcast it could be a TV show it could be a movie it could be a play. It could be anything so I'm turning you on.
[00:55:31] Wow. Well I'm actually there's a three book book series that I've been reading that has really been turning me on some cool and they're all written by the Harbinger Institute which is actually out of Utah is out of Farmington Utah. Oh I didn't know that. So the first book is called The Anatomy of peace or resolving the heart of conflict. The second book is Leadership and self-deception. And the third book is the outward mindset. And these books build on each other to talk to. Really what it comes down to is is helping us see the humanity in ourselves and each other and not and not how we have a tendency to treat others as objects or things. You're an obstacle to my happiness you are an obstacle to this the you're this that the other when we talk about others we tend to dehumanize them. It's easier for us to deal with objects than people. And what's amazing about this whole book series is it helps you to really delve into what you can do and it's very very practical to what you can do to really get yourself what they say. To live outside the box that you put up for yourself. I see and live in a way that where you recognize and appreciate the humanity of everyone where you are. You're not worried about labels you're not worried about well how do I respond or deal with this other individual because there in this particular group because any sort of group label ultimately turns someone into a thing and not a person. Right. I see. And as well as and especially like in the workplace as well. Yeah. Do I deal with my team how to do with my boss or boss isn't a person boss is a thing right. Right. My employee is a thing. How do I recognize their hopes dreams problems issues and their humanity and what turns me on about all this is that it's really about the human condition and how we can recognize and accept that in everybody rather than trying to live inside this box where we only recognize our own humanity our own wants and needs and everybody else is just either a stepping stone or an obstacle to that to ourselves. But rather I mean it it's really amazing work when you read all us because again that outward mindset I'm thinking about others it leads to service it leads to caring it leads to to better communities. So that's really what's turning me on.
[00:57:42] It sounds very interesting. Tell us the title and the author again.
[00:57:45] So the author is the Arbinger Institute and this is actually important because rather than it being it's not about the ego of the writer it's actually the institute which is fascinating. So it's the anatomy of peace leadership and self-deception and the outward mindset. These three books read in order that we are absolutely fabulous. Oh great.
[00:58:06] Well thank you for sharing those. It's always our listeners favorite part of the whole episode. Well just to kind of cap off things we want to make sure that you know you know tickets are on sale for the Shakespeare Festival. Again you can check out bar dot org or definitely call the ticket office. Preview weeks of the first performances will begin June 28 and that'll be the preview week but the official opening dates are July 5th through 7th. That's correct. That's right. And we want to make sure to remind you that that mobile app is coming out. So stay tuned for news on that. And don't forget. Great gifts for your grads and great gifts for any students that student access card just 40 dollars. And students can see as many shows as they want as many times as they want throughout the season. So except Othello. I want to make sure we're very clear. You're absolutely right. So and then please don't forget get those Othello tickets right away. Well thank you so much Tyler for being here. It's been so cool to hear about the summer festival and hear about what's coming up and and just thanks for your time today.
[00:59:16] Well thank you for having me.
[00:59:17] Absolutely it's our pleasure. All right. Well we'll be back in a couple weeks but again thank you so much for being here and listening to the apex hour today.
[00:59:27] Thanks so much for listening to the apex hour here on KMC under ninety one point one. Come find us again next Thursday at 3:00 p.m. for more conversations with the visiting guests at Southern Utah University and New music to discover for your next playlist. And in the meantime we would love to see you with our events on campus to find out more. Check out suu.edu/apex or email us at suuapex@icloud.com. Until next week. This is Lynn Vartan saying goodbye from the Apex Hour here Thunder ninety one point one.