Traditionally, the 45th anniversary is considered the "sapphire" anniversary.

That being the case, one of this season's most spectacular shows at the Utah Shakespearean Festival — the rarely produced "Antony and Cleopatra" — will feature exquisite costuming and lots of sapphires and other jewelry, according to festival director R. Scott Phillips.

The Cedar City-based festival has only produced "Antony and Cleopatra" twice before — in 1963 and 1985.

Other productions this season are Shakespeare's "The Merry Wives of Windsor" and "Hamlet" (along with "Antony," all on the outdoor stage), and three more-contemporary works in the Randall L. Jones Theatre: Gilbert and Sullivan's "H.M.S. Pinafore" (featuring festival founder Fred C. Adams in a bright red wig), "On Golden Pond" and the classic farce "Room Service."

These six plays amount to "a season of relationships," Phillips said during an interview in the Deseret Morning News offices. "There's the relationship between Falstaff and his 'Merry Wives of Windsor' . . . and certainly the relationship — or the lack thereof — between Hamlet and his mother, Queen Gertrude, and his stepfather, Claudius.

"There's the relationship that director Nagle Jackson is trying to build between Mark Antony and Cleopatra, because he maintains this play is about them and their love, not about the country and not about the war. You hear these things, but it's all about their relationship."

In "On Golden Pond" it's the relationship between Norman and Ethel, Phillips said, "and Norman trying to rebuild a relationship with their daughter Chelsea, through her son, Billy Ray.

"And in 'Room Service' — and this may be a stretch — is that relationship that theater people have and how they try to convey that outside world to the audience. They are doing everything they can to keep this play alive long enough to get it produced for an audience to see it and love it as much as they love it. So that's a 'relationship' thing."

Finally, in 'H.M.S. Pinafore," he explained, "it's a physical relationship between the sailors and those sisters and aunts, and I also believe — and this is just my own personal belief — that it's the relationship that Gilbert and Sullivan both had as they were trying to create their parody on Victorian society, looking at all the rules and mores of the day, and poking fun at them."

Phillips added that there is also an overall tie-in. "The most important relationship in theater is between the actor and the audience. When that connection is made, and when the story line becomes something that you, as an audience member, can relate to, that's when it has the power to move you."