2014 New Stages Tour Production Guide
A
MIDSUMMER
NIGHT'S
dream
Asolo Repertory Theatre presents
an FSU/Asolo Conservatory for Actor Training Production:
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
by William Shakespeare
Adapted & Directed by Jen Wineman
Touring schools September 29 - November 25
Asolo Rep Leadership
Producing Artistic Director
Michael Edwards
Managing Director
Linda DiGabriele
FSU/Asolo Conservatory Director &
Associate Artistic Director of Asolo Rep
Greg Leaming
Why do we keep going to the woods?
the 2013 New stages
cast answers student
questions following a
school performance
A Midsummer Night’s Dream is
one of William Shakespeare’s most
beloved and widely produced plays. It
is a comedy that exposes truths about
love, self-expression, and society
which enjoys even more popularity now
than when it was first produced in 1596
England.
MIDSUMMER
CREATIVE TEAM
Director
Jen Wineman
Resident Dramaturg
Lauryn E. Sasso
Costume Design
Elizabeth Barrett Groth
Sound Design
Matthew Parker
Props Master
Marlenn Whitney
Voice & Dialect Coach
Patricia Delorey
Stage Manager
Becki Zaritsky
Asolo Rep Education &
Outreach Staff
Education & Outreach Director
Kathryn Moroney
Education & Outreach Specialist
Tiffany Ford
Education & Outreach Apprentice
Brittney Biddle
Overview
The New Stages Tour brings a Shakespeare performance directly to your school. You will be
seeing a 45-minute adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream performed by actors in the
Florida State University MFA Conservatory Acting Program. It is their 3rd and final year in
this professional training program, housed at Asolo Repertory Theatre in Sarasota, FL.
Every performance is followed by a question and answer session with the cast. We
encourage you to think about what you might like to ask the actors, including questions
about the play, how they interpret their characters, or about their experience rehearsing and
performing Shakespeare’s work.
“The irony, of course, is that A
Midsummer Night’s Dream was not
popular in its day. The play was rarely
performed until 1840, ushering in a
rage for fairies, goblins, sprites, pixies
and elves in the 19th century.” – Critic
Randy Gener
The plot portrays three parallel story
lines with characters who venture into
the woods to follow their passions:
1. Young lovers escaping adults and
their laws,
2. A group of common craftsmen
attempting to rehearse a play for the
Duke of Athens
3.Fairies who inhabit the woods, ruled
by their own King and Queen.
At night in the woods, the lovers
and the craftsmen have separate,
dreamlike experiences that cause
them to question themselves and their
passions. They return to society, the
3
City of Athens, a little different than
when they left.
Esteemed director Anne Bogart
described her own personal response
to Midsummer:
“The play reminds us that the world we
inhabit is far richer, more multifaceted
and more mysterious than the
repetitions of our day-to-day lives
would lead us to assume. We need to
believe in fairies and come to know that
each of us has a fairy lurking inside.”
Full article available online.
Teachers are invited to join us for our special Educators Open House and preview
performance on Wednesday October 1 from 5-7pm. RSVP by emailing
[email protected], and watch to receive confirmation from a member of our staff.
“But we are spirits
of another sort.”
– Oberon, King of
the Fairies
EXTRA RESOURCES
When you see this logo, additional information is available
online at asolorep.org/education/resources.
Major Support From
Table of Contents
COMPARE
RELATE
CREATE
Overview ............................................................................ 2
Why do we keep going into the woods?..............................3
Asolo Rep Theatre Guild
Charles and Marjorie Barancik
David and Betty-Jean Bavar
Cordelia Lee Beattie Foundation
Mandell and Madeleine Berman Foundation
Harold C. and Jacqueline F. Bladel Foundation
Carole Crosby and Larry Wickless
Linnie E. Dalbeck Memorial Foundation Trust
Susan Dweck
Andrew R. Ferrell Foundation
Bill and Christine Isaac
William Lawson
Plantation Community Foundation
Kim and Mark Standish
Modernizing Shakespeare ..................................................4
Modernizing this production ...............................................5
Characters: Welcome to Athens Academy .......................6-7
After the show ....................................................................8
Upcoming at Asolo Rep .......................................................8
• Think of a story with fairies or other
magical creatures as influential
characters. How would you
describe those creatures? What
is their influence on the humans
around them?
• Can you compare examples from
different time periods or cultures?
What do they have in common? Do
the differences suggest how the
magical creature reflects its time
and place?
• Describe ideas you connect with
“The Woods,” including sensory
and emotional adjectives. Do the
same for “The City.”
• Going Further: Find a written
passage, poem, photo, artwork, or
piece of music that expresses your
impression of one or both places.
• Why do you think Shakespeare
chose to send his characters out
of the city and into the forest?
• What other plays, books, or films
have a similar motif, using a trip
into the woods or natural world as
an important part of the story?
• When do you feel like a “spirit of
another sort?” What would your
“fairy lurking inside” look like?
How would it behave? How is it
different from how you usually
appear in your life?
• Going Further: Create an artwork
or poem describing your fairy.
Modernizing shakespeare
Laurence tennant jokes, “Hawaiian shirts were all the rage in
the renaissance.”
4
Today, Shakespeare’s plays are often adapted and produced with a
twist. The director chooses a different style, time, and/or setting than is
depicted in the original script. This can range from a contemporary urban
neighborhood, to a WWII battlefield, to a minimalist style void of time
and place. Despite the modern elements, the original language is often
maintained or kept mostly intact with some cuts, like in Baz Luhrmann’s
pop-style film of Romeo + Juliet or Anne Bogart’s Dust Bowl era stage
adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Modernizing This production
“I have had a rare vision.
I have had a dream, past
the wit of man to say what
dream it was.”
- Bottom, the Mechanicals’
leading player
Since Directors have taken such radical liberties with Shakespeare’s works, there are many perspectives on modernizing Shakespeare.
Purists Say...
“The first production of Hamlet in modern dress happened 50 years
ago in England. Everyone was amazed. But today when one does
external modernizing – fascist uniforms in the Roman plays, or
playing Shakespeare in jeans and bringing motor bikes on stage –
this amounts to a new cliché.” – Director, Peter Brook.
Shakespeare wrote for a bare stage.... The audience should focus
purely on the plays themselves. There is a particular power and
majesty to his language. Adaptations threaten to obscure his rhetorical
beauty and foreground costumes, settings and starlets instead.
Take Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet, where lines are shouted and
screamed in front of overwhelmingly kaleidoscopic backgrounds, to
the extent that it is a farce to brand the movie a ‘Shakespearean’
adaptation at all.... Lord of the Rings wouldn’t be the same if it was
adapted into a New York mob thriller. So why do directors think that
they can transplant Shakespeare onto the most ridiculous contexts
successfully? It’s often an attention-grabbing stunt.” – Journalist Laurence Tennant.
ANALYZE
Modernizers say... “We wanted it to feel urgent and real, populated by characters we could
connect with and understand.... We set out to make the characters
feel human because they are clearly embodied by thinking, feeling
people, rather than being the verbal abstractions they can sometimes
turn into in the school room.” – Writer, A.J. Hartley co-wrote
Macbeth, A Novel
“My goal is to try to penetrate what is behind the text, what the
author was truly trying to say... Modernizing Hamlet is not bringing
in gimmicks; it is digging deeply into the text to find the level where
one touches the fibers that have been buried through the years, and
have led people to think that the text is sacrosanct. It means making
something from the past live in the present – representing. And
representing demands different things in different plays.” – Director
Peter Brook
Full articles available online.
• Which side are you on? Would you prefer to see a modernized or traditional production of Shakespeare?
Why?
• Peter Brook is an acclaimed director of Shakespeare, and his two quotes were taken from the same interview
about his recent production of Hamlet. Why would a director choose to modernize Shakespeare when he
believes that most modernizations are “cliché?”
• Have you seen an example of an older story adapted for modern times on stage or film? What older story
would be interesting to see adapted to a new setting?
DID
YOU
KNOW?
Beyond modern settings, in some artists’ hands Shakespeare’s
plots provide the source for completely new works, like the
musical-turned-film West Side Story (re-envisioning of Romeo and
Juliet), and the film-turned-musical, The Lion King (re-envisioning
of Hamlet).
See more examples of film modernizations of Shakespeare’s plays
in an article from The Guardian.
A Director’s vision often comes from a message or
theme in the script that he/she believes is important
for the audience to see, hear, and explore. Asolo Rep’s
Director Jen Wineman describes her vision: “In his book, The Power of Myth, Joseph Campbell
wrote, ‘Shakespeare said that art is a mirror held up
to nature. And that’s what it is. The nature is your
nature, and all of these wonderful poetic images
of mythology are referring to something in you.’...
While Midsummer deals heavily with magic, my
hope is that students will be able to connect with
the very human experiences the characters are
dealing with: unrequited love, parental disapproval,
a desire to rebel, and a need for self-expression.”
Wineman wants these connections to be recognizable for
all the students who see the play.
“It made sense to focus the storytelling on the
young lovers. The city of Athens becomes Athens
Academy, a prestigious private school where
Helena, Hermia, Demetrius, and Lysander all
attend. Hippolyta and Theseus rule the school as
dean and principal, while the fairies are represented
by rebellious teens who would rather hang out in
the woods near the academy than go to class. Our
Mechanicals come from the custodial staff, the
groundskeepers, the lunchroom staff.”
These characters, their worlds, and their roles within the
story are further explored on the following pages.
5
EGEUS
Full of vexation I come, with complaint
Against my child, my daughter Hermia.
Stand forth, Demetrius. My noble lord,
This man has my consent to marry her.
Stand forth, Lysander: and my gracious duke,
This man hath bewitch’d the bosom of my child;
Be it so she; will not here before your grace
Consent to marry with Demetrius,
I beg the ancient privilege,
As she is mine, I may dispose of her.
THESEUS
What say you, Hermia?
Demetrius is a worthy gentleman.
HERMIA
So is Lysander.
THESEUS
In himself he is;
But in this kind, wanting your father’s voice,
The other must be held the worthier.
HERMIA
I would my father look’d but with my eyes.
THESEUS
Rather your eyes must with his judgment look.
HERMIA
I do entreat your grace to pardon me.
But I beseech your grace that I may know
The worst that may befall me in this case,
If I refuse to wed Demetrius.
ANALYZE +
CREATE
Interpret the above excerpt from Midsummer. If time
allows, these can be performed for the class.
• Rewrite each character’s lines in modern language.
• What is happening to each character and how
does he or she feel about it? How can you tell?
• Have you had a similar conversation?
• Who does Egeus represent to you, in your world?
• Who does Theseus represent?
• Where would this conversation take place in 2014?
• Pick a song that you would play in connection with
your version of this scene.
CHARACTERS: WELCOME TO ATHENS ACADEMY!
CHARACTERS: WELCOME TO ATHENS ACADEMY!
6
Meet the
Administration &
Faculty...
Meet the OUTSIDERS...
• Some students have dropped out of Athens Academy, rather
than tolerate a strict, rule-ridden environment. They hang out in
the woods where they feel more comfortable being themselves.
• Oberon & Titania are the leaders.They are in love, but they also
have passionate fights.
• The Outsiders, who call themselves “fairies,” are very in touch
with nature, and practice magical powers. Oberon asks Puck,
his faithful friend, to use magic to help the Lovers fix their
relationship turmoil.
• Theseus, the Principal, and Hippolyta, the Dean, are engaged.
• Egeus, a teacher at Athens Academy, is frustrated with his daughter, Hermia.
Egeus disapproves of Hermia’s boyfriend, Lysander, and instead wants her to
date Demetrius.
• Egeus seeks help from Theseus to put Hermia in line.
DID YOU KNOW?
Meet the Students
& Lovers...
• Hermia & Lysander plan to flee to
Lysander’s Aunt’s house to escape Theseus
and Egeus who threaten their relationship.
• Helena is still in love with her ex,
Demetrius, who is now in love with Hermia.
• Helena decides to tell Demetrius that Hermia
& Lysander are fleeing into the woods.
ANALYZE
INTERPRET
Directors often use images to communicate their vision with the creative team and actors. Designers are not usually
asked to replicate what they see in the images, but simply to use them as inspiration. The photos included on these
pages inspired our director, Jen Wineman. For example, the costume designer might be given the photo of the
man with horns (page 7) and ask Wineman; “Is it the idea of the horns specifically, the animal quality, or the mix
of hard and soft natural material that interests you for this character?” As you watch the play, see if you can infer
Wineman’s answer.
According to Helena’s monologue:
• Why did Demetrius leave her? Why does she decide to tell
Demetrius that Hermia is fleeing to the woods? What is the
benefit? What is the cost?
• Do you think Helena is acting reasonably? If you were Helena,
what would you do about your feelings for Demetrius? If you
were Helena’s close friend, what advice would you give her
about her relationship with Demetrius?
• Jen Wineman proposes, “Helena might be a little emo now.”
What do you think she means by that?
In Act I, Scene 1, Helena says:
How happy some o’er other some can be!
Through Athens I am thought as fair as she.
But what of that? Demetrius thinks not so;
He will not know what all but he do know:
Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind;
And therefore is wing’d Cupid painted blind:
For ere Demetrius look’d on Hermia’s eyne,
He hail’d down oaths that he was only mine;
And when this hail some heat from Hermia felt,
So he dissolved, and showers of oaths did melt.
I will go tell him of fair Hermia’s flight:
Then to the wood will he to-morrow night
Pursue her; and for this intelligence
If I have thanks, it is a dear expense:
But herein mean I to enrich my pain,
To have his sight thither and back again.
Meet the
School Staff...
In Act V, Scene 1, Puck says:
Now it is the time of night
That the graves all gaping wide,
Every one lets forth his sprite,
In the church-way paths to glide:
And we fairies, that do run
By the triple Hecate’s team,
From the presence of the sun,
Following darkness like a dream,
Now are frolic: not a mouse
Shall disturb this hallow’d house.
I am sent with broom before,
To sweep the dust behind the door.
• Shakespeare uses the motif of darkness versus light
throughout this play. What do you think he is trying to say
about these seemingly opposing forces?
• What role do dreams play in our lives? Do you think more
truth is uncovered in the darkness and illusions of dreams?
Do you think dreams are just a distraction that should be
swept “behind the door,” as Puck refers?
• The “Rude Mechanicals” are the blue collar staff, such as
groundskeepers, cafeteria crew, and custodians at Athens
Academy.
• Quince, Snout, Starveling, Flute, Snug, and Bottom plan
to perform a play called Pyramus & Thisbe for Theseus &
Hippolyta’s wedding.
• Excited to be creative and express themselves, they venture
into the woods behind the school to rehearse “obscenely and
courageously.”
• Bottom is, by far, the most over-confident actor in the group and
tends to make a fool of himself.
COMPARE
7
In Act IV, Scene 1, Bottom says:
The eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen, man’s hand is not
able to taste, his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report, what my dream was.
I will get Peter Quince to write a ballad of this dream: it shall be called Bottom’s
Dream, because it hath no bottom...
Read this excerpt from Bottom aloud to a partner, then have your partner read the
excerpt from Helena to you (page 6). What sounds different?
Note: All of the Mechanicals speak in prose, instead of poetry. Prose is the most
ordinary form of written or spoken language, without metrical structure. The rest of
the characters in the play speak metered rhythm and sometimes in rhyming couplets.
Going Further: Compare the two examples of the verse on these pages from Helena
and Puck. How are they similar? How different? What do you hear when they are
spoken aloud? Why do you think Shakespeare wrote this way?
RELATE
Wineman says, “Midsummer is first
and foremost a comedy. And part
of why we laugh is because these
characters are familiar, especially for
young audiences.”
If you were a character in this play,
who would you be? Are you one of
the Lovers who lives in the world of
daylight and order, but follows love
to the woods? Are you a Mechanical
with a hidden talent? Are you a Fairy
who thrives in your own environment?
See how the actors answer this question
by following the cast.
AsoloRepEdu
@MidsummerAsolo
Check online for other resources, including photo and
video updates starting in September.
Asolorep.org/Education/Resources
After the Show:
Send us your review of the performance!
Post your thoughts at facebook.com/AsoloRepEdu,
or email us at [email protected].
Not sure how to start? We’d love to hear
your perspective on…
• How would you describe this performance to
someone who hasn’t seen it?
@MidsummerAsolo
• Which characters reminded you of people
you know in real life? Why?
Facebook.com/AsoloRepEdu
• What surprised you?
• What type of theatre would you like to see
from Asolo Rep next? What would it have in
common with this performance? What would
be different?
Asolo Rep’s 2014-15 Student Matinee Season
South Pacific, November 25 at 10:30am
The Matchmaker, February 3 & 10 at 10:30am
As You Like It, January 14 what 10:30am
Both Your Houses, February 24 at 10:30am
For more information, contact us at:
[email protected]
941-351-9010 ext 3307
Asolorep.org/education/school­_programs