A Midsummer Night's Dream
by William Shakespeare
Town & Gown Players, 1992-93 season
It would not be putting it too strong to say not every detail of this production went the way Fran, as director, planned. One of the Fairies got pregnant. The set designer didn't hold with Fran's ideas about minimal staging and decided to reuse a steep ramp built for A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. Thisbe was bad to drop his trousers. The costumer, I should say the second costumer, came in a day late and a dollar short. The Man in the Moon's Dog stole scene after scene from a resentful Peter Quince. The Fairy King suffered pain that couldn't be accounted for by anything in the show (since dealt with). Puck got into a torrid public relationship with a silk flower. The Braves made it into the playoffs on opening weekend. And we found out the day before going up that we were the gala season premiere, which meant a delay in our final dress.
All the same, it was a pretty good production. The remaining Fairies slew the audience with their plastic toys. David created excellent music and provided a pipe and tabor for Bottom to play. The ramp, remodeled into a raked lily pad, gave Bottom a place to hide while donning his donkey head. Hermia, a good foot less tall than Helena, got every value out of those "short" gags. And our audiences loved the big song and dance at the end.
I have a couple of photos of the cast.
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A Midsummer Night's Dream