A Midsummer Night’s Dream is arguably William Shakespeare’s most popular and inviting for creatively-variated presentation play. One such new and highly-anticipated variation lands in Falls Church and starts tonight, the Meridian High School drama department’s offering.
It is described by the school’s public information folks as involving “dream and see star-crossed lovers, grumpy old men, fairies, a hobgoblin, a donkey-headed monster, and a play-within-a-play spectacular. And if you’d really like to get caught up in the action (and maybe dragged onstage to join the cast), come in your pajamas.”
The shows are tonight, Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m. and $15 adult, $5 stidemt tickets can be purchased in advance or at the door. It will also be streamed live.
Productions led by instructor Shawn Northrip have outdone themselves in recent years, heightening anticipation of the novel elements audiences are coming to anticipate. This one will not disappoint given Northrip’s advance descriptions.
“We’ve leaned into the idea that the show is a dream,” he told the News-Press. “We’ve built a pillow world and pajamas and slumber parties, where our monsters look like stuffed animals and anything can happen.”
He added, “It’s a fast-paced farce that I’ve had so much fun rehearsing with the cast that I’ve managed to forget a lot of other more difficult responsibilities I have working on the show. We’re planning to be drawing a few people up onto stage. And we hope that people who wouldn’t mind joining us will come to the show in their pajamas. We won’t ask them to do anything crazy, just come watch the action from amongst the chaos.”
He told Meridian student Tessa Kassoff as she reported in an article for the school paper, The Lasso, ““Who wants [a play] to be the same? My goal is always to mix it up. Four years of not expecting the same thing for me is pretty challenging. And in my career, I also don’t want to expect the same thing for myself.”
A Midsummer Night’s Dream has been presented in wildly different manners over the many years since it was first performed in the early 1600s in England. One of the more legendary versions was one of the three U.S. film versions by Max Reinhardt in 1935 that starred James Cagney, Mickey Rooney as Puck in his first film atr age 14, Olivia deHaviland, Dick Powell, Joe E. Brown and Ross Alexander.
It was the centerpiece of a later comedy romp, Ken Ludwig’s award winning “Shakespeare in Hollywood.” The play has also been done, in addition to film, as ballet and opera.
As for what audiences can expect tonight and this weekend? “My vision is that the set is just a giant mountain of pillows that’s somehow the largest pillow fort that characters are coming from,” Northrip told The Lasso. And that’s just for starters.
The cast includes J.P. Tysse, Eliana Pizzirusso, Katrina Hardt, Abby Fred, Samantha Grooms, Eudora Neal, Hugo Ratheau, Abby Berg, Aggie Linforth, Jack Kreul, Sebastian Robertson, Katarina V, Alex Fugham, Marshall Virtual-Reality, Mia Schatz, Will Albaugh, Gundega Davidsone.
