ASF 2016 Study Materials & Activities for A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare Director Set Design Costume Design Lighting Design Diana Van Fossen James Wolk Brenda Van der Wiel Travis MaCale Contact ASF at: www.asf.net Study materials written by 1.800.841-4273 Susan Willis, ASF Dramaturg
[email protected] ASF/ 1 A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare Welcome to A Midsummer Night's Dream Shakespeare's comedies are among the glories of drama, and none is more Characters glorious than A Midsummer Night's at court: Dream, a hearty confection of myth and Theseus, Duke of Athens magic, court and country, aristocrat and Hippolyta, queen of the artisan. It dazzles with the delights of its Amazons fairy kingdom, its confused lovers, and its Egeus, a lord at court earnest amateur acting troupe—and any Hermia, his daugher play that puts donkey ears on a blowhard Titania Lysander, beloved of Hermia is sure to please. It moves toward a spate asleep Demetrius, the man Egeus of weddings and the funniest rendition in her wants Hermia to marry of a tragedy known to theatre. Along the bower, Helena, in love with Demetrius way, Shakespeare weaves four plots into and, like the Philostrate, a lord a joyous comic pattern that divides and reunites, dreams and awakens, enchants lovers, and enlightens. about to in the town: awaken Peter Quince, a carpenter to new Nick Bottom, a weaver who The Story "love" plays Pyramus Trouble at Court Francis Flute, a bellows Having defeated Hippolyta in battle, the others. Bottom's singing then awakens mender who plays Thisbe Theseus now plans to wed this Queen of the the flower-charmed Titania, and she falls Tom Snout, a tinker who plays Amazons.