Milestones Icon: Colorado Shakespeare Festival

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears – for the Colorado Shakespeare Festival is one of the oldest cultural programs in Boulder.

The festival takes place every summer on the University of Colorado campus and produces several of the Bard’s works, as well as classic plays from other writers, other times, and other cultures. It draws up to 40,000 audience members for the summer season and holiday play.

The festival unofficially began in 1944, when CU Shakespeare teacher and bibliographer James Sandoe was asked to direct a play for the coming summer. He produced “Romeo & Juliet,” and because the indoor University…