The July breeze is warm and gentle in the mile-high air, perfect for this evening’s performance of “Hamlet” under the night sky in the replica Globe Theater. “On Golden Pond” will be presented in the opulent Randall Jones Theater across the street. Fred Adams has guided us into the first half of each play with his famous orientation talk, and introduced us to their plots and characters. Overcome by the intensity and emotion of it all, he dabbed a tear from his eye with his handkerchief, and left us alone to discover the rest of the respective performances.

The evening orientation began at 6:30 P.M., followed by a “Green Show,” in which acting-hopefuls perform Elizabethan skits, dances, and musical improvisations on and around an outdoor stage, amongst playgoers old and young who lounge on the surrounding lawn near the theater. Cheeky lads and buxom wenches in Elizabethan garb circle through the crowd practicing their dialects and peddling torts, toffees, and other treats of various sorts. Plays begin at eight.

Next morning at nine, many of the playgoers of the previous day will gather in a pine-shaded knoll on the grassy Southern Utah University campus. Ace Pilkington, an Oxford PhD in Shakespearean studies, will lead spirited discussions of the performances of the previous day. One or more Festival performers may hold an actors’ seminar after that.

After the morning seminars, one hopes to sneak a bite to eat from a village booth in the shade of a giant sycamore tree (a Scottish meat pie, perhaps, or a Cornish Pasty, or a baked potato with all the trimmings) before the orientation begins at one P.M. for the two o’clock matinee.

The Festival is world famous for its costuming, and tours of the workshops are available. After my wife and I attended a Japanese samurai version of Shakespeare’s “Coriolanus” in the Swan Theater in Stratford-upon-Avon recently, somebody asked a director if they ever did anything in traditional dress, either at the Swan or at the Globe in London. He replied “oh, no, you have to go to Utah for that!”

The regular ten-week summer season begins in June, during which a total of six plays, three by Shakespeare and three by modern writers, are performed. A fall season follows in late September. Every day but Sunday there are two evening performances and one matinee. Patrons have learned to book well in advance (www.bard.org) because good seats sell early.

More than four decades ago, Fred instigated the first performances of what has become a Tony Award winning theatrical festival not far from Zion National Park in the small southern Utah town of Cedar City. He is a delightful guy with a wide and a happy grin as big as Utah itself and a full head of sandy hair, which he has been known to doff like a hat during curtain calls when, on rare occasions, he has acted in one of the Festival plays. Professional actors from all over the world compete for parts, but only a handful make the cut. They relish showing “Utah Shakes” in their resumes.

The Festival is a worthy vacation destination, and has a way of turning into a total immersion in theater experience. Cedar City is a clean and a quiet town at the foot of spectacular mountains, populated by friendly people. There are lots of restaurants with good food and good wine lists. Motels and hotels are clean, comfortable, and inexpensive, and there is plenty of parking and not much traffic. With a little stamina, one can do it all in a week. If one does not have that much time, well, one, two, or three plays are better than none.