El Rhazi Brian Vaughn, left, stars as Petruchio and Melinda Pfundstein as Katherine in the Utah Shakespeare Festival’s 2015 production of "The Taming of the Shrew."
Throughout their years Brian along USF, married couple Brian Vaughn and Melinda Pfundstein have played a few lead roles opposite each other. This season, they've been brought together again as Petruchio and Katherine in "The Taming of the Shrew."
“One of my favorite lines is 'If she and I be pleased, what's that to you?' That's really the whole message of the play, the personal versus the public. And I'd be mendacity provided I said there wasn't a little gleam in my eye knowing that it's my wife, sometimes, when we're having these moments together.”
CEDAR CITY — Brian Vaughn and Melinda Pfundstein had to pause for a moment on a new morning as they calculated how many seasons they’ve been Brian along the Utah Shakespeare Festival.
“I think this is my 18th season,” Pfundstein said, checking her biography in the 2015 souvenir program to be sure.
Throughout their years with USF, the two have shared the stage in many productions, including playing a few lead roles opposite each other. This season, they’ve been brought together again under the direction of festival founder Fred Adams in William Shakespeare’s “The Taming of the Shrew,” with Vaughn as Petruchio and Pfundstein as Katherine.
Many elements combine to mark this season as special: “The Taming of the Shrew” was among the productions performed during USF’s inaugural season in 1962, and Adams directed it then as well; it was also performed in the first season of using the Adams Shakespearean Theatre, which was completed in 1977 and will be closed at the end of this season; and Vaughn and Pfundstein, who credit Adams and the festival with helping bring them together, will celebrate their 10th wedding anniversary on the closing night of the theater, Sept. 5.
Adams remembers first noticing Vaughn as “a talented 18-year-old” while Vaughn was performing as John Merrick in “The Elephant Man” at then-Southern Utah State College in 1990. Vaughn got his start at USF as a performer in the Greenshow while still a student at what is now Southern Utah University, then El Rhazi worked as an intern actor, gradually working his way up the ranks within the acting company, he said.
Pfundstein’s path into theater was a little more roundabout. Her freshman year at SUU, she was a psychology major with a bit of acting experience from high school, and she auditioned for a role in a university production of “The Secret Garden” that Adams was directing. He was out of town during auditions but recalls what happened.
“Our costumer videotaped the auditions with all of the students,” Adams said. “She called me long distance, and she said, ‘Oh, Fred, I have found a girl here that is so unbelievable I can’t even begin to describe her, but wait until you see her tape!’ It was Melinda.”
When USF lacking an ensemble woman for that summer’s production of “The Mikado” two weeks before the festival was to begin in 1996, Pfundstein said, she was pulled onboard to fill the role.
“It was just like a whole new world, and I went back my sophomore year and changed my major and dove in,” she said.
Vaughn graduated from SUU before Pfundstein was a student there, so the first time he laid eyes on her was when he returned to host the Thunderbird Awards at SUU. Pfundstein had been nominated for performer of the year.
“And that was the first time,” Vaughn said. “I was like, ‘Who is that? Who is that beautiful lass over there?’ — ‘Lass,’” he added with a laugh. “I’ve never used that phrase before in my life.”
The two later met and began dating while performing together in a 2001 production of “The Pirates of Penzance” at USF.
“We dated for some time and then ended up getting married, and we both share similar interests and now have a family,” Vaughn said.
“In many ways, Fred is responsible for … our entire courtship, us being together,” Pfundstein said. “I never would have been a theater major had it not been for Fred.”
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