A Midsummer Night’s Dream arrives early as Minnehaha’s spring play

by Katie Chamberlain

The Minnehaha theater department takes on a new challenge this spring as they showcase one of Shakespeare’s comedies, A Midsummer Night’s Dream. This show about love and deception starts off set in Athens, Greece, then takes us through a fairyland-woods where the gods will have fun intervening with the mortal’s love lives.

The annual spring musical was moved to the fall this year due to the every-other year Pops concert performed by the bands in the spring. The play’s director, Nicholas Freeman, took this opportunity to perform a classic Shakespeare story.

“I think it’s important that we do Shakespeare every once in a while, and I know it had been about five years since the last Shakespeare was done,” said Freeman. “I felt it was time for us to do another Shakespeare play. I wanted to pick a play that I felt was not too intimidating, just picking a really fun, cool story to be able to tell with this heightened language of Shakespeare and to really sink into simply telling the story.”

Freshman Carter Schuld expressed his excitement about being a member of the over 20 member cast.

“It’s very exciting,” Schuld said. “It’s great to be surrounded by such great actors that are all older than me, I can really learn something from them. It’s also really fun to be able to hang out with people older than me.”

The play this year will be another black box production, meaning the audience will be sitting on the stage instead of the auditorium seats, where they will surround the acting on three different sides. This type of thrust configuration involves the audience and makes them feel as if they’re part of the action.

“It’s determined by each show and the feel that I want to get,” said Freeman when talking about how he chose this as a Black Box show. “So often people are turned off by Shakespeare that is presented to them in the Shakespearean voice and, the men-in-tights kind of stuff. I wanted to avoid that so I simply wanted to tell the story. It’s gotta be a simple story that gets to the heart of the piece and tells it in a fun and exciting way.”

“It’s definitely been difficult to adapt to the Shakespeare language because it’s just so unlike what we say,” said senior Danny Chamberlain who plays Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. “I bought the No Fear Shakespeare book so I was able to figure out some of the meaning behind what they were saying and that’s really helped me to dissect the part because if I don’t know what it means, then I don’t know how to say it.”

Since most of the play takes place in a fairyland setting, elaborate costumes and makeup are essential. Freeman said the audience should expect to see cool costumes, great makeup and funky hairstyles.

“Everyone’s costume is a little different to fit their personalities,” said sophomore Sophie Law. “And lots of makeup to make everyone look like the magical person they are in the play.”

The cast is very excited and have been working endless hours to prepare this show.
“The people in the play become like your family, it’s so much fun. I encourage everyone to get involved,” said Law.

Reserve your tickets now by emailing:
[email protected]
or by calling Student Services at 612-729-8321
A limited number of tickets will be available at the door.