Shakespeare in Coventry
This week we are preparing for an epic production of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ in Coventry. I say ‘epic’ because we will be working with 190 children in Years 3-6 which translates into a heck of a lot of fairies! As per our usual Project Weeks the children will discover the whole play on Monday by acting out the roles themselves and answering questions to move the story along. We’ll encourage discussion about the rights and wrongs of being forced to marry someone you don’t love and have a lot of fun getting everyone to shout at each other as Titania and Oberon. Then the hard work will begin – rehearsals. There is no getting away from it, with group sizes ranging from 15 – 30, there is going to be a lot of ‘fairy action’ – the fairies (or maybe they will have to be goblins to appease some of the boys) will provide important supporting roles, helping the audience to keep up with the plot. And that is no easy task, after all we’re talking three separate stories intertwined: The Lovers, The Fairies, The Mechanicals. Introduce spells and the wrong people falling in love and you can see how audiences unfamiliar with the play (even those of us who know it rather well) could get a tad confused. Watch this space to find out how our 190 actors succeed ……………
Now you may wonder why I’ve added the picture above. Well it’s Hermia twenty five years after the end of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’. You’re right, it’s me portraying Hermia in my show ‘The Dust Behind The Door’ (part of the ‘Bard Heads’ collection) which I’ll be performing at Trebah Gardens Amphitheatre, near Falmouth on 16 April at 7.30pm. It will be our first open air performance so let’s hope it stays dry in Cornwall in April and the temperature rises a little. I’ll also be performing it at The Spring Arts and Heritage Centre, Havant on the afternoon of 5 May. More on all of these performances nearer the time.
For now it is time to sign off and get back to Scene 3 of ‘The Dream’ – you know, the one where 25 fairies watch Puck put the juice in the wrong man’s eyes……………….
