A Midsummer Night's Dream

As April takes centre stage, we're diving into the world of all things Shakespeare. With incredible plays, adaptations and playful parodies, we're here to help you bring the world of Shakespeare to life, whether it's in your classroom or on the stage. So grab your favourite quill and parchment, and let's celebrate the Bard's birthday in style with these phenomenal plays!

*Welcome to our Featured Play Spotlight. * You don’t want to miss this one act annotated version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream – Shakespeare’s magical tale of mischievous fairies, and love potions (cutting and notes by Lindsay Price from the original by Shakespeare). The classic tale of mischievous fairies and love, set in the Athenian woods. Great blend of comedy and romance. ““What a triumph! Thank you SOOO much for this rendition of Midsummer – it was brilliant, and my students adored it.”” ~Debra Gress, SCH Academy| Let’s hear from the author!1. Why did you adapt and annotate this play? It’s one of Shakespeare’s most accessible works and the characters are fabulous to play. 2. Describe the theme in one or two sentences. The appearance and reality of love and relationships. 3. What’s the most important visual for you in this play? That first moment when Bottom appears with a donkey’s head instead of his own and the chaos that erupts among the mechanicals! 4. If you could give one piece of advice for those producing the play, what would it be? Don’t get so caught up in the unfamiliar language that you forget character development. Shakespeare creates vivid characters. Make sure students understand who they’re playing, what they want, and how they’re going to get what they want. Then make sure everyone understands every word they’re saying. Comprehension and character go hand in hand with Shakespeare. 5. Why is this play great for student performers? Character, character, character! Fun characters to physicalize, relationships to explore, and a love potion to create chaos. Get your copy of A Midsummer Night’s Dream_ _right here, right now!Interested in studying this play with your class? Don't miss our FREE classroom study guide! Not right for your group right now? Search our play catalogue to find one that your performers will love!

Welcome to our Featured Play Spotlight. Cobweb Dreams by Lindsay Price is a fun-filled fantasy, filled with friendship and fairies. A great play for high school and middle school students that runs parallel to the events of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Cobweb is not having a good time as part of Titania’s train. She dreams of a life where she plays pranks all day long and doesn’t have to be a stuffy, stuck-up fairy in waiting. If only it was a simple as crossing the brook to be part of Oberon’s train! But life in the woods is not simple. The King and Queen fight tooth and nail, Cobweb fights to make her dreams come true, and her friends fight to keep her from being turned into a toadstool. A mortal with a donkey head has wandered into the grove and the flower fairies blame Cobweb. Oh will this midsummer night never end? Let’s hear from the author! 1. Why did you write this play? Adaptation is my favourite form of writing, and I’ve always been a little obsessed with the four lines that the fairies have in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. What’s happening with the fairies, when the other stories are taking place? 2. Describe the theme in one or two sentences. A fun-filled forest fantasy about friendship, self-image, and fairies. 3. What’s the most important visual for you in this play? The different fairy groups were such fun to write because they each have distinct traits: The water fairies are bubbly, the flower fairies are snobby and the woodland fairies are down to earth tomboys. Creating the look for each will give you a wonderful visual landscape tot he piece. 4. If you could give one piece of advice for those producing the play, what would it be? This is a character driven fantasy piece so focus on those two elements. Make each fairy group unique physically and have fun with the costumes! 5. Why is this play great for student performers? At the heart of it, the play is about friendships and figuring out who you really are. These are great themes for students to explore whether or not they’re in the context of a Shakespeare story!

If you’re looking for a beautiful blend of comedy and romance, not to mention mischievous fairies and love potions, look no further. Lindsay Price’s one-act annotated version of the classic tale, A Midsummer Night’s Dream set in the Athenian woods is a fun and fantastical way to introduce students to Shakespeare. Tracy Garratt and the talented drama students at A.N. Myer Secondary School in Niagara Falls, Ontario transformed their school courtyard to perform this play and made it a magical night for everyone in attendance. “The students wanted to do something challenging and at the end of last year decided on A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Tracy spent the summer reviewing the script and coming up with some blocking but the theme, colours, props and costuming were all student driven. They decided where the play should be presented and what it should look like. Some of them struggled with the language, being bright kids they thought they could fulfill their comprehension on the fly. But the week before production their understanding of the text led to a real physical connection with their characters. They were so proud of their work they wanted to take home the props and costumes they had made as souvenirs.” Amazing job, A.N. Myer Secondary School! **Photo credit: Rena Burns

Are your students feeling stuck or frustrated with their playwriting assignments? This exercise will help get them unstuck by challenging them to explore alternative situations for their scenes and characters. You can do this exercise in three different ways: • Students changing a scene written by themselves, OR • Students pairing up, trading scenes, and changing a scene written by their partner, OR • By adapting a scene from an existing script. First, students will take their scene (either previously self-written, written by a partner, or a scene from an existing play) and read it through carefully. Then, they will answer the following questions on a separate sheet of paper, brainstorming 3-5 suggestions for each question. Suggestions could be comedic, dramatic, tragic, or ridiculous – the point is for students to generate lots of ideas and alternatives. 1. What might happen if one of the characters didn’t appear in the scene, or a different character appeared instead? (For example, in Hamlet, what if Ophelia or Rosencrantz was hidden behind the tapestry instead of Polonius?) 2. What might happen if one of the characters reacted in a completely different way than they did in the scene before? (For example, in Macbeth, what if Macbeth and Macduff start breakdancing instead of swordfighting?) 3. What might happen if one of the characters makes a completely different decision than they did in the scene before? (For example, in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, what if Oberon decides to kill Puck as a punishment when Puck places the potion on Lysander instead of Demetrius?) From this brainstorm session, have students choose one of their suggestions and use it to rewrite their existing scene into something new. The only rule is that the scene cannot just cut off and end abruptly with the change (as in, “He dies. The end.”). How does the change affect the rest of the scene, the characters, and the overall story? What happens now that the change has occurred? How do the characters react to the changes? Have students explore these thoughts during their rewrite. Optional: Once the scenes are rewritten, have students do staged readings of the new material. If students are working with scenes that they have written themselves, this exercise will be especially useful as they develop their scripts. It’s so easy to get stuck with clichéd scenarios and stock characters – this exercise helps students to push their limits and realize that anything is possible in the world of playwriting!

Episode 13: Teacher InterviewLindsay sits down with teacher and director Ina Szekely moments after finishing a new play workshop at Havergal College. Ina will be directing the premiere of Lindsay’s play Cobweb Dreams in the spring. They talk process and what it’s like to direct a premiere as her first play.