Pageants, readings are offered

Two long-running pageants and free readings of new plays at the Utah Shakespearean Festival are among this week's new stage offerings in the region.

• THE PLAYS-IN-PROGRESS series at the Utah Shakespearean Festival in Cedar City gets under way this week with two staged readings of Stuart Boyce's "Tears in the Sand," directed by Peter Sham. The series' mission is to encourage the development of new plays and playwrights, giving attention to Western subjects, characters, experiences and themes (although new plays dealing with classical subjects are occasionally chosen).

"Tears in the Sand" is about the struggle between two men after the Sand Creek Massacre in 1864 — Col. John Chivington and Capt. Silas Soule, both soldiers in the Union army. Each is equally determined that the pages of history reflect the event as he saw it. One refuses to fire his rifle; the other orders that anything that moves be killed. Each believes he is providing the model for a young nation.

Readings will be Thursday and Friday at 10:15 a.m. in Southern Utah University's Thorley Recital Hall, with an additional performance on Sept. 1.

The next two plays in the series are Aden Ross' "Lady Macbeth," directed by David Ivers (Aug. 19-20 and Sept. 2), and Mark Rigney's "Gaining Ground," directed by Robert Gerard Anderson (Aug. 26-27 and Sept. 3). Readings on Sept. 1-3 will be in the Auditorium Theatre.

Admission to the Plays-in-Progress series is free, but donations of $5-$10 are encouraged to help cover the costs of continuing the program. One future goal of the festival is the construction of a third theater dedicated to original, experimental productions and the development of new plays.

• "BENSON GRISTMILL PAGEANT," now in its ninth year, is being staged for three performances on Friday and Saturday, and Aug. 16 at the historic gristmill site near Stansbury Park. Historic events surrounding the settling of the area and construction of the mill are told within the framework of a family reunion, involving descendents of Alfred, Isaac, Francis and Eli Lee. Christie Steadman is producer and director of the pageant, described as "a musical celebration of Utah history with a Tooele twist."