Utah Shakespearean Festival

This week I was able to spend a week out of the office.


I spent the first three days down in Richfield, UT on Snow College campus with the UEN UtahSAINT (Utah Educators Network - Security Advisory and Incident Network Team). I went down with a couple guys from my office. The conference covered most of the network security issues that educators are seeing in the state. There were several proposals of what can be done to help protect UEN Networks and prevent unauthorized access to networking devices.


Now for the fun part... =0]

Thursday morning I met at Pleasant Grove High School with the Shakespeak Drama Team. We gathered and jumped on a charter bus and headed to Cedar City, UT for the Utah Shakespeare Festival High School Competition. we went down with some great scenes from some of the great Shakespeare writings.

We actually ended up taking home only one trophy (Duo Dance I believe), but we should have taken several other awards, but the judges were on LSD (we just don't have proof), and we were outscored by some freaking weird ensemble scenes that had nothing to do with the competition. It is sad, but the judges do what they want.


While we were down there though we were able to go to two of the current shows. The first show that we went to was Moonlight and Magnolias which is a hilarious play about the writing of the script for Gone with the Wind. The second show that we went to was Gaslight which is a suspenseful show full of mystery, murder, and memories. They were both great shows and I think that all of the students had a great time.

Something really cool the the group had the opportunity to do was talk with Fred Adams, the founder and executive producer of the Utah Shakespeare festival. we met in the Randall L. Jones Theatre, in a room that is seldom visited by High School Students. I don't remember the name of the room, but it was incredible, usually only reserved for VIP high donors. The items in the room were several hundred if not thousand of years old. It was immaculate!

Fred was great with the students, sharing stories and life long lessons that he has learned and lived. He was fun to listen to and gave a great presentation to the students.

Overall is was a great opportunity for the students and chaperones alike. I think that we all had a good time even though we didn't win everything that we were planning and hoping to win.