Picture taken by: Reecca Hale/ Assistant Reverb Editor
REBECCA HALE
Assistant Reverb Editor
This weekend, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” will open as the first production in this year’s Walter Gloor Mainstage Series in Marvel Theatre. The play is one of Shakespeare’s most popular works, and the Department of Theatre and Dance plans to deliver it with a few new twists.
The main game changer is that this particular production is set in the 1960s, during the Summer of Love, on a small college campus in Athens, Ohio.
“Usually, when you think of Shakespeare, you think of it as [being set in] old times, so it’s fun to do something in the sixties,” explained Ana McCasland, a sophomore video production major who plays the role of Nick Bottom. “There’s a lot of drug culture and youth culture in it, so it’s pretty interesting. It’s my favorite thing about the show.”
Another interesting change made to the script is that many traditionally male roles, such as Nick Bottom and Puck, will be played by females. McCasland’s character was consequently renamed “Nan” Bottom.
Director Tom Loughlin explained that this change is not abnormal. Shakespearean plays were traditionally performed by all male actors, and, consequently, there are usually very few female characters in his plays. Still, the way Shakespeare wrote the characters without prominent male characteristics makes it easy for a female to play a male role.
“For the actors, there’s a whole range of characters to play, from the rude mechanicals to the lovers to the fairies – all of them provide different challenges for different types of actors. You can cast all kinds of types in it, and you can offer opportunities to female actors because a lot of the roles don’t require specific genders,” Loughlin said.
Loughlin explained his reasoning for choosing “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” calling it “‘The Christmas Carol’ of the Shakespearean canon.”
“The play offers a lot of things both to an audience coming to a Shakespeare show, and also to our actors within the department,” said Loughlin. “It’s Shakespeare’s most fun play to do in many ways, and it has a plotline that is very easy to understand.”
Noel O’Day, a senior theatrical production and design major with concentration in costume design, is the assistant costume designer and costume crafts artist for the production. She explained a little bit about the costumes for “Midsummer.”
“All of the fairies are hippies, which is really funny. They’re in these painted bodysuits that are supposed to look like body paint,” she said.
“It’s set in a college, so they have presidents of the college representing the royals,” she continued. “The rude mechanicals are the employees of the college, so they’re dressed up like workers would be – like janitors and cooks within the college.”
The set, designed by Cameron Caulfield, is a combination of different elements. It contains hints of an Elizabethan stage, utilizing different levels. It also feels like a traditional Ivy-league-esque college campus with Greek pillars, and the rest of the set feels like a mystical, Alice-In-Wonderland woods. The lighting was designed to alter the mood on set and affects the stage color scheme drastically.
Tickets for “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” are available through the ticket office in the Williams Center, by phone at 673-3501 and online at fredonia.edu/tickets. The show will run Friday and Saturday, Oct. 17 and 18, at 7:30 p.m., Sunday, Oct. 19, at 2 p.m., and next week Thursday, Oct. 23, through Saturday, Oct. 25, at 7:30 p.m.
Coincidentally, this weekend and next are both big weekends for Fredonia, as the campus will be hosting both Homecoming Weekend and Family Weekend, respectively. So, how is this going to affect ticket sales?
McCasland explained her theory.
“I think it will attract [viewers], because I assume some alumni will have seen shows here before, and I think family weekend will attract, too, because I know a lot of the theatre majors will bring their parents to see the show, so I don’t think it will harm attendance at all.”
Nonetheless, the cast members of “Midsummer” are having a blast with the production, and they want their friends and family to do the same.
“The whole point of it is to not think too much — just come in and have fun!“ said Loughlin.