By Sean Neary
Lincoln High theatre students experienced much fun and excitement over their spring production of the Shakespearean comedy, A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The show took the stage Thursday, April 30th in the Ted Sorensen Theare. We spoke to the cast before opening night. “It’s a fantastic show,” senior Andrew Miller- Schell [Oberon] said. “A lot of people have done it, but it’s a show that you can really make your own. You can really mess around with it, and make it interesting and funny.
” “Everyone’s having a lot of fun,” senior Jocelyn Ernst [Tatanya] said. “There’s a lot of laughing, and I think the show will turn out very well.” “It’s Shakespeare. It’s kids doing Shakespeare. It’s fairies. It’s Athenian Nobles. It’s kids excited,” director Molly Thomas said. The story is about a group of Athenian Nobles and a group of fairies, and some of the younger Athenian Nobles are in love, because they’re kids.
“One of the fathers, Egis, wants his daughter to marry Dimitrius, one of the other guys in the show, and she doesn’t want to,” Miller-Schell said. “She’s in love with Lisandra, and then there’s her friend, so there’s a big love feud, and the fairies get involved, and they make everybody fall in love with everybody else. There’s some confusion in it, and in the end, everybody ends up happily ever after.” “I’m Queen Tatanya of the fairies,” Ernst said. “Tatanya is very fun,” Ernst said. “I’ve played a lot of queen, motherly kind of roles, and also, Andrew, who plays Oberon, King of the fairies in the show, has been paired up with me three times now, and this is the second show where we’ve been king and queen of something. It’s fun to explore different kinds of relationships in different shows, and stuff like that.”
Thomas said that she chose A Midsummer Night’s Dream because it’s one of her favorite Shakespeare productions. The director and both actors added that they have an excellent cast, and that everyone fits their part well. “Everybody’s on track. Everybody enjoys the show. The show itself is getting a lot of positive influence in it,” Miller-Schell said. The actors also noted that there is no one very big role in this show. There are different leads and every part is important in a way. “It’s really fun for me,” Ernst said. “About ten years ago when they did A Midsummer Night’s Dream here, my sister was in it and I got to be a little fairy in the show with her, and so it’s a very full circle.” “I’ve seen productions of it done by professional Shakespeare companies and this is one of the most popular Shakespeare shows to do,” Miller- Schell said. If you wanted to experience the fun and excitement of A Midsummer Night’s Dream it was in Lincoln High Ted Sorensen Theater on Thursday, April 30th at 7p.m., Friday, May 1st at 7p.m., and Saturday, May 2nd at 2p.m. Tickets were $5.
