Actor’s Circle Theatre’s 2016 Shakespeare in the Park offering, A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM, opens the first two weekends in August at Depot Square Park in Peterborough, NH.
“These two weekends are our steadfast tradition!” states ACT Managing Director, Rob Koch. “This year ‘s official dates are August 6, 7, 13 and 14, 5PM all shows, and Chris McCartie is back as our director. It’s also a very special occasion for ACT—it’s our ninth anniversary of Shakespeare in the Park and, as always, we offer it free to the public. Our audiences continue to grow, and we’re grateful and happy for the opportunity to offer the Bard’s works year after year in Depot Square.”
“A Midsummer Night’s Dream is one of Shakespeare’s most popular comedies,” says director Chris McCartie. “This version is set in modern-day Peterborough; the humans are humans, as expected…and the fairies will remain fairies.”
The play portrays extraordinary events surrounding the marriage of Theseus, Duke of Athens/Peterborough to Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons (in this case, executive at Amazon). Amorous misadventures of four young humans—Demetrius, Hermia, Lysander, and Helena—ensue, as they are controlled and manipulated by Oberon and Titania, King and Queen of the Fairies, and the knavish fairy, Robin Goodfellow, a Puck, who inhabit the forest in which most of the play is set. Amidst all of this are a pack of laborers, the Rude Mechanicals, who are called upon by Egeus, the grande dame in town, to perform a play for the Duke and his bride. Oberon and Titania also grapple over the latter’s charge, a changeling child, and Oberon has his Puck change one of the Rudes, Nick Bottom, into an ass, and with a spell cast on Titania that, upon waking, she’ll fall in love with the first being she sees. Says McCartie, “All that, and what happens after, is not to be missed come the first two weekends of August!”
Actors’ Circle Theatre is a 501(c)(3) NH nonprofit organization, and a Performing Partner of The Park Theatre. ACT participates in Arts Alive!, whose mission is to enhance quality of life by advancing arts and culture in the Monadnock region –
www.monadnockartsalive.org. Details about ACTS’s 2016 Shakespeare in the Park-A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM, and its ticketed fall productions, are available by visiting www.actorscircletheatre.org.
