If there’s
one thing SUU’s Michael Don Bahr knows, it’s teaching. If there’s another, it
would surely be youngstersWant another? How about William Shakespeare and the Bard’s works?
He rolls all that interest and knowledge into a position that could very well be tailor-made for him. As the education director of the Utah Shakespeare Festival and the director of Shakespeare studies for the College of Performing and Visual Arts, responsibilities he both loves and magnifies, he is fully immersed in teaching Shakespeare to young people.
“I am in love with the power of theater as an educational tool,” Michael says. “It can teach any subject.”
And, his passionate works over the past 30-plus years underscore that belief.
He directs the USF’s Shakespeare-in-the-Schools Tour, a traveling roadshow of sorts that treks to schools around the intermountain West, delivering professional Shakespeare productions to 40,000 students annually and providing innovative looks at theater. He also runs the Thunderbard program for the University, exposing all incoming SUU students to Shakespeare on stage via the USF, and he manages the renowned High School Shakespeare Competition for SUU, an event that brings to Cedar City more than 3,000 students from 105 schools throughout the intermountain West and beyond. It recently celebrated its 40th anniversary of filling area motels, hotels, restaurants and stores for a vibrant weekend.
If all that were not
enough, he created and directs the Bard’s Birthday Bash for local elementary
school students, who have come to campus over the past 14 years to celebrate and
to learn of the life of the most revered writer in the western world.
Michael is known for his youthful enthusiasm and boyish charm, which belie the fact that he came to SUU in 1982 as a wide-eyed freshman from Richfield High School and was among the stars of SUU’s vaunted theatre arts program, earning his bachelor’s degree in 1989, his years here interrupted by an LDS mission. He went on to teach for 14 years in the public school systems of Utah and California, and garnered a fistful of awards for teaching excellence. He returned to the University in 1998 and has become an integral and indispensable part of the campus and community as his works at SUU help buoy Cedar City in myriad ways and his work with the Cedar Valley Community Theatre entertains, enriches and edifies the populace and gives voice to the creative dreams of everyday citizens.
Michael is known for his youthful enthusiasm and boyish charm, which belie the fact that he came to SUU in 1982 as a wide-eyed freshman from Richfield High School and was among the stars of SUU’s vaunted theatre arts program, earning his bachelor’s degree in 1989, his years here interrupted by an LDS mission. He went on to teach for 14 years in the public school systems of Utah and California, and garnered a fistful of awards for teaching excellence. He returned to the University in 1998 and has become an integral and indispensable part of the campus and community as his works at SUU help buoy Cedar City in myriad ways and his work with the Cedar Valley Community Theatre entertains, enriches and edifies the populace and gives voice to the creative dreams of everyday citizens.
He calls
himself a “theater advocate,” and still performs on occasion, as he will in
December as he reprises his popular role of Bob Cratchit in the USF’s
production of A Christmas Carol on the
Air. However, he prefers to direct, as he will with the CVCT production of
Oliver!, now in rehearsals and slated for a January 27-February 4 run in the Heritage
Theater.
Michael met his wife Kris (Michie) of Kaysville, Utah, at SUU and they are now parents to four and grandparents to five, “going on six,” he says.
Michael met his wife Kris (Michie) of Kaysville, Utah, at SUU and they are now parents to four and grandparents to five, “going on six,” he says.
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