PROVO — It was during a high school field trip to see a production of “The Tempest” in Cedar City, 50 years ago, that William Shakespeare first realized his name would create a stir wherever he went.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I have some important news,” announced the play’s director at the Utah Shakespearean Festival when everyone had been seated. “It’s my pleasure to inform you that for the first time in 400 years, we have William Shakespeare in the audience to see one of his plays.”
As heads turned and his friends laughed, the lanky ranch boy known as “Bill” at Bryce Valley High School in rural Garfield County wondered why they were making much ado about nothing.
“My grandfather was named William Shakespeare,” he says. “My uncle was named William Shakespeare. In Tropic, Utah, where the Shakespeares first settled, they made up 25 percent of the population. I was just one of the bunch.”
He never dreamed that one day he would teach Shakespeare classes as a college professor and come to love "The Bard" as though he were a member of the family.
Which, as it turns out, he was.
At a recent Shakespeare family reunion in Tropic, William, now 65 and retired from teaching English and Shakespeare at Brigham Young University, learned from one of his cousins about a new genealogical link to the world’s greatest playwright.
“For years, we were stuck in 1579 London in our research,” says William, “so this was quite a find. It links us to Thomas Shakespeare, a brother to John Shakespeare, who was William Shakespeare’s father. If authenticated, it appears that William Shakespeare the poet called my direct ancestor ‘Uncle Tom.’”
With a controversial new movie, “Anonymous,” now making headlines with a long-disputed theory that Shakespeare was a fraud who didn’t write a single word, I thought it would be a good time to catch up with Utah’s William Shakespeare.
Actually, the Beehive State is home to three William Shakespeares: Besides Bill in Provo, his son and grandson in Park City also bear the noteworthy name.
“It’s one of those names that you feel compelled to pass on,” says William, taking time for a Free Lunch chat before helping his wife, Dena, babysit another of their grandchildren, Seth.
“As I’ve grown older, I’ve realized it’s more than just my name that links me to Shakespeare,” he says. “I feel inspiration and a reverence when I read what he wrote. Whenever this old argument comes up that he didn’t write his plays, I find it annoying. Genius is a gift and Shakespeare was given that gift. Shakespeares are born; they’re not made.”
In this William Shakespeare’s case, writing or acting didn’t come naturally.
“My experience on stage consisted of playing a hillbilly in the school play,” he says. “People back home remember two things about me. They remember me following the cows in the pasture and holding on to the tail of one of the cows. And they remember that in my other hand, I always had a book.”
After serving an LDS mission in England and visiting the birthplace of his namesake in Stratford-Upon-Avon, William’s love for great literature intensified and he decided to become an English major at BYU.
Years later, as a member of the school’s English faculty, he was in a meeting when he learned two Shakespeare professors were retiring. “Who’s going to teach all of these Shakespeare classes?” the department chairman asked.
William Shakespeare slowly raised his hand. It was simply meant to be.
“Something wonderful happened to me after that,” he says. “I marched into the classroom, started studying the text and fell in love with Shakespeare. For the first time, it just opened up to me.”
Today, he can’t go more than a day or two without reading a few verses from “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” “King Lear,” or his favorite play, “Romeo and Juliet.”
“People think it’s all about young hormones, but if you look closely, it’s an example of what true love is really about,” says William. “I love ‘Hamlet,’ but my heart will always go with ‘Romeo and Juliet.’”
As for William Shakespeare’s own love life, he once dated a woman with a sister named Anne Hathaway. But it was Dena Blaylock who captured his heart.
William laughs as he recalls his mother-in-law Bonne Gifford’s experience on a city bus with a stranger who was lamenting about her unmarried daughter. “I sure wish she’d settle down and find a William Shakespeare to marry,” the woman said.
Bonne didn’t miss a beat. “I’m sorry, but she’s too late,” she said. “My daughter already married him.”
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