The stage on the hill Cedar Hills
The only significant public facility this city has opened in a decade
Heritage Park, and the stage finished in 2024.
A shallow bowl of grass at 4425 West Cedar Hills Drive with an outdoor amphitheatre at the bottom of it, plus a playground, a pavilion, restrooms, a basketball court and the best shaded sand volleyball in the city. What the venue is like to sit at, the company that stages a summer season on it, the December night the city lights a tree here, and which of the three Cedar Hills parks you actually want.
Southern Utah is my home turf. Cedar Hills is not, so these pages are researched rather than lived: checked against city, county and venue sources, and dated so you can see how fresh they are. For the on-the-ground work here I lean on a Utah County partner agent.
Start here
A park with a stage at the bottom of its slope.
Heritage Park sits at 4425 West Cedar Hills Drive on the south side of the spine road, and its defining feature is the ground rather than anything built on it. The land falls away into a shallow bowl, and in 2024 the city put an outdoor amphitheatre at the bottom of that bowl. It is the only significant new public facility Cedar Hills has opened in this decade and it changed the job the park does.
Everything that was here before is still here. A playground, a pavilion with seven tables, restrooms, a basketball court, a sand volleyball court set under mature trees that give it the best shade in the city, and a good deal of open grass. The Cedar Hills Parkway trail runs straight through the park, which makes it a natural start or finish for a walk across town rather than a destination you have to drive to and drive away from.
What the amphitheatre added is a reason to come here after dark. Two things now use it: a theatre company that stages an outdoor season across the summer, and the city's own December tree lighting. Between them they turn a good neighbourhood park into the closest thing this city has to a cultural venue, which for a place of 2.73 square miles is a genuinely unusual thing to own.
The park in numbers
2024
the year the outdoor amphitheatre was completed
4425 W
Cedar Hills Drive, on the south side of the road
7
tables under the pavilion
Free
to walk in, on every day of the year
The amphitheatre
No seats, no roof, and an audience close enough to touch the stage.
The amphitheatre was finished in 2024 and the first production staged on it was King Lear, in June of that year, at fifteen dollars a ticket. Starting a new outdoor venue with the bleakest play in the language is a choice, and it worked partly because of how the space behaves: the bowl brings an audience down close to the playing area, and performers can and do come out into the crowd.
Physically it is simple. A stage and a concrete apron at the low point, a grass hillside rising away from it, and nothing else. That means no sightline problems and no bad seats in the usual sense, and it also means no seat backs, no shade and no cover if the weather turns. People bring camp chairs and blankets and stake out ground, and the front of the hill goes first.
The practical consequences are all about time of day. On a June or July evening the sun sits on the western side of the bowl until well into the show, so the first half of an eight o'clock performance can be hot and bright and the second half can be perfect. Nothing on that hillside is shaded after about four in the afternoon, which is worth knowing before you plan an early arrival to claim a spot.
For a city this size the amphitheatre is a disproportionate asset. It costs nothing to walk past, it costs nothing to sit on when nothing is staged, and when something is, the ticket prices are the sort a small local company sets rather than the sort a regional venue does.
Bring your own chair and your own shade, because the hillside is the entire seating plan. This is a grass bowl with a stage at the bottom of it. There are no fixed seats, no numbered rows, no covered section and no shade structure of any kind, and the western side of the slope holds the late sun until well into an evening performance. Anybody arriving expecting a seat will spend the show sitting on the ground. Bring a low chair or a blanket, bring water, and arrive early enough to choose ground rather than to accept it. And if a water feature was the point of the outing, this is the wrong park entirely: the splash pad is at Harvey Park on Harvey Boulevard, about a mile west of here, and there is nothing to play in on this site.
The company that lives here
A community theatre with a London credit on its record.
The amphitheatre has a resident summer occupant, and the story behind it is better than a small city venue usually gets. This section covers the company as this venue's tenant; the wider story of how two cities founded it together belongs partly to the neighbour that co founded it.
Creekside Theatre Fest was founded in 2015 out of a partnership between the Highland and Cedar Hills arts councils, formed the year before with the aim of bringing serious theatre to this part of Utah County. Cedar Hills took it on after 2016, the organisation began paying performer stipends in 2017 to hold its standard, and it incorporated as a nonprofit, The Creekside Theatre Group, in 2018. It performed at various borrowed venues for most of a decade, which is exactly what the 2024 amphitheatre solved.
The credit worth knowing about is not local. The company's original musical, first staged in 2023, went on to a West End debut in London in 2024. That is an unusual line on the record of a volunteer founded company from a city of ten thousand people, and it is the reason this section exists rather than a sentence in a park listing.
The programme now runs on two tracks. The outdoor season plays on the hillside here across the warm months. The indoor season, added in 2022, plays at The Liahona Theatre for the Community at 2464 West 450 South in Pleasant Grove, which is where the company puts the work that needs a roof, a lighting rig and a quiet room. In 2026 the outdoor programme was The Merry Wives of Windsor and A Year With Frog and Toad, and the indoor programme was Persuasion and Rabbit Hole.
Tickets and dates come from the company rather than from the city, and the outdoor performances have historically run at eight in the evening on a short set of dates rather than across a long run. If a specific play is the reason for the trip, check the company's own listing before you drive.
| The outdoor season | The indoor season | |
|---|---|---|
| Where it plays | The amphitheatre at Heritage Park, 4425 West Cedar Hills Drive | The Liahona Theatre for the Community, 2464 West 450 South, Pleasant Grove |
| When | Across the warm months, on short runs rather than long ones | Added in 2022, running outside the outdoor window |
| What the seating is | A grass hillside and a concrete apron; bring your own chair | A conventional indoor house |
| What 2026 carried | The Merry Wives of Windsor and A Year With Frog and Toad | Persuasion and Rabbit Hole |
| What can go wrong | Weather, late sun on the western slope, and no cover | Nothing weather related; the constraint is the calendar |
Seasons and venues as published by Creekside Theatre Fest and checked 14 August 2026. The company sets its own dates and prices and publishes them itself, and a small company's schedule moves more than a regional theatre's does, so confirm at the source rather than from a listing site or a park page, including this one.
One night in December
The other thing this ground is used for.
Christmas at the Creek is the city's tree lighting and it happens here. The 2025 edition was held on Monday 1 December at seven in the evening at Heritage Park, with music and refreshments, and a Christmas treat for anyone who brought a non perishable food donation for Tabitha's Way, the food pantry that serves this part of Utah County.
That is a small event described accurately rather than a big one described breathlessly, and it is worth a paragraph for two reasons. The first is that it is the only fixed thing on the city's winter calendar. The second is that the food drive attached to it is the part people who live here actually organise around, which tells you something about the event that a listing of the entertainment would not.
The date is republished each year rather than fixed to a weekday or a number, so 1 December 2025 is a record of what happened rather than a prediction of what will. Check the city's own calendar in November for the current year.
A stage finished in 2024 gave a city of ten thousand people somewhere to put a summer season and a December evening.
Which park you actually want
Three names that get swapped for each other constantly.
Cedar Hills has three parks that people travel to and they do three completely different jobs. Getting this wrong is the most common wasted drive in the city, and it takes ten seconds to avoid.
| Heritage Park | Harvey Park | Mesquite Park | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Where | 4425 West Cedar Hills Drive | 4301 West Harvey Boulevard | 10440 North Mesquite Way, at the northern edge |
| What it is for | The amphitheatre, the pavilion, sand volleyball and open grass | Water play, a space themed playground with a zipline, and courts | Soccer, and the launch ground for the June drone show and fireworks |
| Water | None at all | The city's only splash pad, on a warm season window | None |
| Courts | Basketball and sand volleyball | Pickleball, tennis and basketball | Pitches rather than courts |
| When it is busiest | A summer performance night, and the June festival week | A hot weekend afternoon | The final Saturday evening of the June week |
Addresses and amenities as published by Cedar Hills City and checked 14 August 2026. All three are free to enter. The seasonal line is the splash pad's operating window, which the city sets rather than the weather, so confirm it before a special journey in May or September.
The week that uses all three
The Family Festival
Eight days at the turn of May into June, and the one evening the crowd moves from one park to another.
Read the pageWhere they rank
The top 6, ranked
Both parks appear in the honest six, and the entries say plainly which one is worth a drive and which is not.
Read the pageThe wider valley
Family weekends in Utah Valley
How the valley's outings price and time against each other once you are willing to leave the bench.
Read the guideWhere this sits
The middle of a city with one main road.
Heritage Park is on Cedar Hills Drive, which is the spine everything here hangs off. Here is what sits at either end of it.
The top of the road
The Cedar Hills Golf Club
A par 71 the city owns, a six hole par three beside it, and a renovation that has kept the layout at nine holes.
Read the pageMoving here
The smallest city on the bench
The land area behind the claim, the terrace under the streets and the highway that was decommissioned in 2014.
Read the pageThe companion
Cedar Hills, in full
Where the stage on the hill fits into the wider picture of a very small city on a bench.
Read the pageKeep reading
The rest of the Cedar Hills companion.
Things to do
The top 6, ranked
Six that survive a count in 2.73 square miles, with the borrowed scenery handed back.
Read the guideThe course
The Cedar Hills Golf Club
A par 71 the city owns, a six hole par three beside it, and a bond that ran the politics.
Read the guideEight days in June
The Family Festival
A 5K, a parade up 4600 West, a car show on the amphitheatre grounds and drones at 9.45.
Read the guideMoving here
The smallest city on the bench
Smallest by area, by about three times, and the decommissioned highway that still serves.
Read the guideThe companion
Cedar Hills, in full
The course, the amphitheatre, the June week and the 2.73 square miles they all fit inside.
Read the pageQuick answers
The park, answered.
At 4425 West Cedar Hills Drive, on the south side of the road that runs the length of the city. It carries an outdoor amphitheatre completed in 2024, a playground, a pavilion with seven tables, restrooms, a basketball court, a sand volleyball court under mature trees and a good deal of open grass, with the Cedar Hills Parkway trail running straight through it. There is parking on site, which is adequate on an ordinary day and stretched on a performance night.
It is a grass bowl with a stage and a concrete apron at the low point and a hillside rising away from it. There are no fixed seats, no numbered rows, no covered section and no shade structure, so an audience sits on chairs and blankets across the slope and the front of the hill goes first. The bowl brings people close enough that performers work out into the crowd. The western side of the slope holds late sun, so an eight o'clock summer performance starts hot and finishes comfortable.
No, and this is the most common mix up in the city. Heritage Park has the amphitheatre, the pavilion, the sand volleyball court and the open grass, and no water feature at all. The splash pad in Cedar Hills is at Harvey Park at 4301 West Harvey Boulevard, about a mile west, along with a space themed playground with a zipline and the city's pickleball, tennis and basketball courts. If water play is the point of the outing, drive to Harvey rather than to Heritage.
The theatre company that stages an outdoor summer season at the Heritage Park amphitheatre. It was founded in 2015 out of a partnership between the Highland and Cedar Hills arts councils formed the year before, began paying performer stipends in 2017, and incorporated as a nonprofit, The Creekside Theatre Group, in 2018. Its original musical, first staged in 2023, went on to a West End debut in London in 2024. Its indoor season, added in 2022, plays at The Liahona Theatre for the Community in Pleasant Grove.
King Lear, in June 2024, staged by Creekside Theatre Fest at fifteen dollars a ticket. It was the first production performed on the new amphitheatre after the venue was completed that year, which is an unusually severe choice for the opening of a small outdoor venue and one that suited the space: the bowl brings an audience close to the playing area and the performers use the hillside as well as the stage.
Yes, for anything staged there. The hillside is the seating plan and there is nothing else, so people bring low camp chairs and blankets and claim ground on the slope or the concrete apron. Bring water as well, because nothing on that hillside is shaded after about four in the afternoon and the late sun sits on the western side of the bowl. On an ordinary day with nothing staged, the pavilion has seven tables and the sand volleyball court sits under the best trees in the city.
The city's tree lighting at Heritage Park. The 2025 edition ran on Monday 1 December at seven in the evening with music and refreshments, and a Christmas treat for anyone bringing a non perishable food donation for Tabitha's Way, the food pantry serving this part of Utah County. It is the only fixed event on the city's winter calendar. The date is republished each year rather than fixed, so check the city's own calendar in November for the current one.
Pavilion and facility reservations in Cedar Hills go through the city rather than through a booking platform, and the amphitheatre is a city facility like the rest of the park. Because the venue carries a summer theatre season and the June festival week on top of ordinary use, the calendar around it is fuller than a park pavilion's usually is. Cedar Hills City is the contact point, and the practical advice is to ask early for anything falling between late May and the end of the summer.
Yes, on every day of the year. Walking in, using the playground, the pavilion, the restrooms, the basketball court, the sand volleyball court and the grass all cost nothing, and so does sitting on the amphitheatre hillside when nothing is staged. The only charge attached to this address is a ticket to a performance, which is set by the company staging it rather than by the city, and those prices are the sort a small local company charges rather than a regional venue.
One park, and the only stage this city has.
An evening here asks what is on and whether you brought a chair. An address near here asks other things: how the parkway trail runs past a specific street, what a performance night does to parking on a summer Friday, and which tier of the bench a lot sits on once you are off the spine road. Tell me what you are weighing and I will put you with a Utah County partner agent who works this bench, and stay on the file for the financing side.
Referral disclosure. Outside Southern Utah, I connect home sellers and buyers with partner agents I trust in their area. If you choose to work with an agent I refer, that agent's brokerage pays my brokerage (Real Broker, LLC) a referral fee. The fee comes out of the agent's compensation; it is not an added cost to you. You are always free to choose any agent you wish, and using a referred agent is never required.