ADRIAN — Adrian joins a long list of cities with Shakespeare in the Park productions this upcoming weekend when the new Adrian Shakespeare Co. presents the comedy, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” in Trestle Park.
The play takes place at 6:30 p.m. Friday, Aug. 2, and Saturday, Aug. 3, and 3 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 4. Admission is free, and patrons are encouraged to bring blankets or lawn chairs and picnics.
The Adrian Shakespeare Co. is the brainchild of two longtime fixtures in the local theatrical community, Steve Kiersey and John MacNaughton. MacNaughton serves as the play’s producer, while Kiersey directs the production.
Doing Shakespeare at Trestle Park has been “a gleam in the eye for a couple of years,” Kiersey said. He and MacNaughton often walk through Trestle Park together and at some point the conversation turned to “someone should do Shakespeare here.”
“Well, that someone was us,” MacNaughton added.
The pair presented their idea to the Adrian City Commission back in February and were met with a very positive response from the commissioners. And with that, the ball began rolling: actors were cast, rehearsal space at Haviland Hall on the PlaneWave Instruments campus was secured, and fundraising began.
Anyone interested in supporting the Adrian Shakespeare Co. financially can do so through the Lenawee Community Foundation, lenaweecommunityfoundation.com .
Why did MacNaughton and Kiersey choose “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” as the first play in what they hope will be an annual Shakespeare event?
“It’s probably Shakespeare’s most popular play,” Kiersey said, describing it as “easy to understand.”
“It’s audience-friendly,” MacNaughton said, with everything a playgoer could want: comedy, romance and action.
Besides, he noted, it’s somehow apt that a play whose plot is set in the outdoors would be produced in a city park. And the Trestle Park bandshell bears some construction similarities to that of the famed Globe Theater in London where Shakespeare’s plays were originally produced — never mind the fact that London has the River Thames and Trestle Park has the River Raisin.
Because of the inherent limitations of the stage space, the play will even look much as it would have in Shakespeare’s time, with relatively simple stagecraft and no real offstage space for actors or scenery.
As experienced actors and directors, MacNaughton and Kiersey were well aware that presenting theater in such a different space will present plenty of challenges. “Having seen our share of Shakespeare in the Park, we knew what pitfalls there might be,” Kiersey said. For one thing, there’s the issue of sound, which the men hope will be addressed by having the actors wear body mikes.
Then there’s the whole setting itself: a public park. As part of their research, the two men went to see another Shakespeare play, “Henry V,” in a similar setting in Livonia, and during the action children were playing not far away.
“It was kind of charming to have an intense fight (scene) onstage and have kids going down a slide right nearby,” MacNaughton said.
But besides the technical challenges and the possible distractions, weather is of course a potential issue. That will be addressed depending on the situation.
The cast includes Mark Schersten as Theseus, Jessica Dougherty as Hippolyta, Mark Hyre as Egeus/Philostrate, Katie Buckley as Hermia, Max Ruff as Lysander, Nate Adams as Demetrius, Kyler Mattoon as Helena, Justin Kohlruss as Peter Quince, Aaron Treadway as Snug, Peter Crist as Nick Bottom, Toni Isom as Francis Flute, Nick Trevino as Tom Snout, Eric Diehl as Robin Starveling, AJ Landingham as Puck, Evan Garcia as Peaseblossom, Macy Schmidt as Cobweb, Carolyn Mohler as Moth, Amelia Bowman as Mustardseed, Scott Leake as Oberon, and Maria Portaro-Mohler as Titania.
In addition to MacNaughton and Kiersey, the production team consists of stage manager Elizabeth Olgren, scenic designer Doug Miller, costume designer Rosemary Olsaver, choreographer Jessica Briggs, and fight director Mark DiPietro.
MacNaughton said that plenty of actors were eager to get involved with this project. In addition to the opportunity to do Shakespeare, and do it in such a groundbreaking way for this area, “there’s quite a community of actors who aren’t song and dance people,” he said.
For Leake, it was about getting to be back onstage for the first time in quite a while. “I have an MFA in theater, so I have a great passion for theater and Shakespeare in particular,” he said, and he has several years’ experience in outdoor theater as well. But as a single father of three, there just wasn’t time to get involved in a show until now.
Doing this play, especially in such a setting, is an enormous challenge, he admitted. “But ever since my younger days, I’ve never shied away from a challenge.”
And for both him and his fellow cast members, “I’m seeing a joy in the work.”
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Leake thinks that “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” is a perfect play to kick things off for the Adrian Shakespeare Co. because of “the accessibility of it” even to people who don’t know anything about Shakespeare — with its “quarreling lovers and nature and fairies,” he said, “and bringing all that to life through comedy.” Plus, “the play gives the audience frequent reminders of what’s going on.”
One thing about Shakespeare’s plays is that there isn’t a lot of specific stage direction. Kiersey said that in “Romeo and Juliet,” for example, the script might simply say, “Romeo and Tybalt fight,” and the same thing is true of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”
“It gives actors and directors a wonderful broad palette to tell the story,” he said.
Kiersey has used that latitude to spice up some of the action. For instance, in the script two characters go offstage to fight, but in this production the battle will take place onstage, and “the fight between the two boys is very grand.”
And to anyone who had to read a Shakespeare play in school, Kiersey said that seeing one of them come to life onstage is a very different experience from simply reading the text.
“It comes to life when you see it acted out in front of you,” he said.
If you go
WHAT: “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”
WHEN: 6:30 p.m. Friday, Aug. 2, and Saturday, Aug. 3; 3 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 4
WHERE: Trestle Park, Adrian
ADMISSION: Free
This article originally appeared on The Daily Telegram: Shakespeare in the Park to open with 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' Aug. 2 at Trestle Park
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