The Utah Shakespeare Festival is hitting the road with its Shakespeare-in-the-Schools touring production of Macbeth and is coming to Moapa Valley.
Workshops for students will be held at the Moapa Valley High School on Monday, January 28 with a performance open to the community that evening at 7 p.m. which will be held at the Mack Lyon Middle School Auditorium.
From January to April, the Festival will take its production of Macbeth to more than 25,000 students in five western states. The tour will spend 14 weeks on the road visiting schools and community centers across west with over 65 performances for 120 schools.
In its 22nd year, this educational outreach program, for the students, features a five minute version of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, including complete costumes, set and theatrical lighting. Also included is a fifteen minute post-show discussion with the actors and optional workshops in Stage Combat, Performing Shakespeare’s Text, Technical Theatre and Developing Character through Improvisation.
Quinn Mattfeld who directed last years performance said “This is a play about a man who walks into the darkness and becomes it. We all fear that the mistakes we make in our lives will come back to haunt us. For Macbeth and his wife, the haunting is literal.”
Macbeth, encouraged by his wife, attempts to remove the obstacles preventing him from becoming king. These obstacles happen to be other characters in the play. He accepts the prophecy of witches as a guide for what will be and misjudges what they tell him.
When asked, why perform Macbeth, Mattfeld said, “There is so much room for storytelling. I am interested in doing a theatrically dynamic production that immediately engages the audience’s imagination.”
In addition to support from the Shakespeare for a New Generation program which is sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts, this tour’s school performance partners are the Utah State Office of Education: Professional Outreach Programs in the Schools, Mountain West Small Business Finance, Ally Bank and UBS Bank. Mountain America Credit Union is serving as the community performance sponsor.
The workshops and performance are sponsored by the Moapa Valley Performing Arts Council and Individual Partners for the Arts which include Nevada Arts Council, America First Credit Union, Grant and Laurel Bushman, Moapa Valley Telephone Company, Moapa Valley Chamber of Commerce, and Board of County Commissioners.
Tickets are $8 for adults, $6 for students and seniors and $30 for a family pass. Tickets can be purchased at the door.
