One of William Shakespeare’s most celebrated plays is running at the University’s Robinson Theatre. “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” opened last Friday and will continue with performances tonight, Friday and Saturday, as well as June 2, 3 and 4. At tonight and this weekend’s performances, audience members can donate to the Noah
Smith Fund, and Sunday, June 4’s matinee performance is a benefit for the local non-profit organization Meals on Wheels.
Noah Smith is a University student who suffered a severe injury after an automobile accident on Dec. 1, 2002. The accident left him classified as a quadriplegic with no feeling in his arms or legs. Prior to his accident, Smith performed in several University Theatre performances, including “The Matchmaker.” He currently lives in San Diego, where he is taking distance education classes for his Spanish degree. Smith will graduate from the University this spring.
Smith’s enthusiasm for the University Theatre left its mark, and since his accident, the theater department has committed itself to raising money for the Noah Smith Fund.
“We thought as long as he was a student here, we would continue to do benefits for him,” said Joseph Gilg, development director of the University Theatre Arts Department .
The other organization “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” will benefit, Meals on Wheels, provides home-delivered meals to local senior citizens. Gilg said the theater has allocated 200 tickets to Meals on Wheels that they can set the sale price for in order to raise money. He expects that the organization could raise more than $2,000 on ticket sales.
One the biggest challenges in producing “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” is the fact that it has been done so often. The director, Theatre Arts associate professor John Schmor, said he had to find something new to say with it. The last University performance of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” was in the 1970s, and Schmor believes that there is always a possibility for more interpretation.
“The changes that I’ve made have been to kind of underscore what I think are the sexual politics of the play,” Schmor said.
Schmor highlights some of the important questions, such as how one should imagine love: in control or out of control. He also attempts to question where the boundary exists in love between what is real and what is imagined and if love is a dream or an awakening.
“It may be important to warn parents that we are not doing a piece of children’s theater,” Schmor said in a press release. “Not that we are doing anything outrageously vulgar or radical, but this play is especially encrusted with expectations and conventions from Victorian ideas about it. In the spirit of Shakespeare’s own theater, we are not trying to literally ‘locate’ the play in a period or particular place and we are not aiming for a safely reverential rendition.”
“A Midsummer Night’s Dream” tells the story of two couples (Hermia and Lysander, and Helena and Demetrius) who wander into the forest and encounter fairy folk who meddle in the couple’s love life and turn everything upside down. Mischievous character Puck adds humor to the story while beautiful and dream-like images of a fairyland forest transport audience members.
The set design for the University’s production began in winter term with simple sketches that turned into the building of the sets before spring break. There will be simple but magical lighting to add to the play’s mythical feel, Schmor said in a press release. Faculty member Alexandra Bonds is the costume designer and Schmor describes the costumes as “really fun; people will get a kick out of them.” University senior Kyle Warren composed several of the play’s songs, including two sung by Sergio Martinez, who plays Puck.
Tickets are $12 for the general public, $9 for University faculty and staff, senior citizens and non-University students, and $5 for University students.
Tonight, University students can get two tickets for the price of one. All other students get in for $4.
Tickets for “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” can be purchased at the EMU ticket office and on the evenings of the performances at the University Theatre Box Office in Robinson Theatre.