"A Midsummer Night's Dream"

Fall '23 Theatre Production

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM 
adapted & directed by esteemed Bay Area director, M. Graham Smith

Running Time: approximately 2 hours (including intermission) 

PURCHASE TICKETS by clicking on the link below:

Thursday, November 2, 2023, 8:00 pm

Friday, November 3, 2023, 4:00 pm (Talk back with creative team after the show)

Saturday, November 4, 2023, 2:00 pm

Saturday, November 4, 2023, 8:00 pm

Sunday, November 5, 2023, 2:00 pm

Prospective high school seniors, reserve your free ticket here (limited availability)

Seminar 250 and Seminar 303 Students, reserve your ticket here.

See the PROMO here.
See the PROGRAM here.

THINGS TO KNOW BEFORE YOU GO

• Masks are not required, but are recommended. Please bring your own.
• Will call/check-in is located in LeFevre Theatre (across from the entrance to the SMC Bookstore). There are no physical tickets for this production: to check in, come to the LeFevre's glass front doors (Will Call), and we will match your name against the list of reservations; or you can show your receipt on your phone. Walk-up tickets are also available at the Box Office half an hour before each performance, via cash or check only.  
• Parking is in the Soda Center parking lot. Please arrive early as parking can be difficult to find at times. Parking may also be available in the gravel lot across the street from the Soda Center or up Mission Road. 
• Program: For every student performer, there are nearly twice as many whose rehearsal and backstage support makes the production possible. Please join us in thanking these valued members of A Midsummer Night's Dream company. The full program is here.
• Exchanges: If you need to exchange your ticket for a different performance, please just bring proof of your original purchase/reservation to the performance you are attending.
• Running time: Approximately 2.5 hours. This includes a 15-minute intermission with some light snacks available for purchase.
• Content Advisory: This show is meant to be light-hearted and fun, but does contain some material that might be triggering to some audience members. Please see the full content advisory:
  • Photosensitivity/Seizure Warning (Flashing Lights)
  • Use of Water-Based Haze/Fog
  • Comedic Depictions of Suicide
  • Threats of Violence
  • Depictions of Physical Violence
  • Sexual References and Implied Sexual Activity
  • Occasional Coarse Language/Profanity

Questions? Contact Tara Sundy at: tms8@stmarys-ca.edu or (925) 631-4670

Here’s what the director has to say about his contemporary take on the play:

About the Play:
Shakespeare’s comedy about Love and Faeries is a lot more dangerous than the usual green-tight treatment reveals. It’s a play about the oppositional forces of the State and Wildness, Conscious and Unconscious desires, Order and Chaos, Reason and Passion, and how we balance these forces in our lives. In Athens Theseus is about to wed Hippolyta the Queen of the Amazons whose people they have just conquered and colonized, marrying them as a symbolic prize for their conquest. Four young lovers are called before Duke Theseus to be reprimanded for letting their messy love triangle evolve against the wishes of one of the Lovers’ father (the patriarchy!). When all four of the Lovers flee into the woods outside Athens to live for their passions, chaos ensues. Meanwhile an amateur troupe of actors rehearse a play for the Duke’s wedding day that goes from bad to terrible and out the other side of terrible to hilarious in spite of itself. And finally the King and Queen of the Faeries (Oberon and Titania) are locked in a cruel game of jealous rivalry and humiliations that is causing the Earth’s environmental well-being to collapse. All the paths intersect in the woods and powerful and sometimes painful revelations spin out of control. When the sun rises and the Duke’s wedding occurs, what choices have been made? Who has compromised? At the end of the play Puck insists that “all is mended” but is it? Can we ever unsee the truths that our dreams show us? How do we reconcile our waking lives with our fantasies? 

A Note from the Director: 
Working on Shakespeare is always thrilling for me because despite what we think we know about Shakespeare, he makes space for us to bring our full selves to the work, revealing new opportunities specific to each artist involved. I’m particularly interested in this play and what it means to be a Faerie today and why the LGBTQI+ community has often gravitated toward creating spaces outside the moral and social walls of The State. Movements like the Radical Faeries and the Surrealists loom large in the world of the Woods as we think of where we can get lost in order to “find” ourselves. What can these liminal spaces show us about ourselves and each other before sunrise when we must return to civilization? How do we balance our explorations in the moonlight with our responsibilities in the daylight world? This production will have a highly physicalized acting aesthetic with stage combat and special attention to movement led by movement specialist Danielle O’Dea, a motion capture expert for video games.