After a conclusion to the first Great Southwest Shakespeare Festival, the Lyric Theatre has cause for celebration.

The Festival put their take on the classic William Shakespeare work, "A Midsummer Night's Dream," and drew in crowds while doing so.

The Artistic Director of the Theatre, Gordon McCall, gave a recap of the celebration of literary arts taking place on night scattered between July 26, and August 17.

He said that the play would have some hard acts to follow as they were planning on hosting the Festival again next year.

"We had visitors from Calgary, Regina, Moose Jaw, Saskatoon, Lloydminster, Medicine Hat, and a number of people told us they had just pulled in off of the highway on their way to somewhere else."

The location of Swift Current is something he had said would benefit the tourism aspect of the Swift Current attraction.

A significant factor affecting both the Festival and southwest Saskatchewan as a whole was the Western Canada Summer Games.

"I think the Games and the Festival together were a wonderful cultural combination," McCall said. "There were offerings for different kinds of cultural experiences that we all provided, and if I was a Games goer, I think I would have been pretty impressed."

Another goal at the onset of the play was to be able to share Shakespeare with youth, something McCall said they were happy to be able to accomplish.

"One young boy, apparently nine-years-old, he came and saw it, went home, recited the whole story of the play to his parents, and then invited his grandmother back and they came back and saw it a second time."

He said that the accessibility of Shakespeare lent itself towards spreading a love of the arts.

McCall said that he was looking forward to relaxing after the hectic nature of production, where he hoped to take in what they had accomplished.