Sunnyvale Community Players puts a modern twist on Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” in a production set to run April 12-27 at the Sunnyvale Community Theatre.
Shakespeare’s classic comedy, set in Athens, tells the story of two forbidden lovers who elope in the woods and encounter fairies who set things right. The Sunnyvale troupe is adding a modern spin, adapting the play into “Cupid’s Isle,” a reality TV dating show where four lovers compete for love.
“We had to do something that would excite audiences, because it’s such a departure from our normal operations,” director Thomas Times said. “We’re usually doing big, big musicals with big ensembles. ‘Midsummer’ is a complete departure from that. I wanted to set the theme around something people automatically have some knowledge around, setting the show as a dating show. It centers around four lovers who end up intertwined in this magical subplot.”
Though a divergence from the original stage play, Times added that the production is true to Shakespeare’s writing, leaving the script and original language untouched.
“It works, because Shakespeare’s text is still so universal,” Times said.
The play features a “play within a play” structure, with a film production “crew” filming the four show contestants, according to Emma Blickenstaff, who plays crewmember Peter Quince. In the original work, the townspeople stage the play for the Duke.
“It just has this modern-day setting to help root our audience in the story, so that they can track what’s going on through that Shakespearean language,” Blickenstaff said. “It’s hard for people to understand sometimes, so by making what’s happening very transparent and putting it in the familiar context, the goal there is that the audience will be able to easily understand what’s going on and be able to be immersed in the show right away. Instead of trades people and merchants in a town, we’re all backstage crew and crew members of this TV show.”
Beyond structural changes, the production also utilizes a lot of humor and action, according to Times.
“One of my favorite scenes in the show that I’m a part of is when one of the other characters in the group gets transformed into a donkey,” Blinckenstaff said. “One of the actors exits the stage, and then he comes back, and he’s transformed into a donkey. And we all freak out about it, because he was a human a minute ago, and now he has a donkey head. All the other characters are freaking out and running around. It’s very silly and very funny.”
Perhaps even more impressive, the show is being produced not by full-time theater professionals, but rather theater hobbyists with outside jobs. They need to put aside time in the evenings and weekends for rehearsals, according to Peter Spoelstra, who plays Bottom, the crew member transformed into a donkey.
“I’m an elementary school teacher, and I feel like there’s a lot of elementary school teacher energy in my character,” Blinckenstaff said. “It’s really fun to get to portray some of that on stage and bring that to (Quince), because he’s in charge of these unruly actors.”
The cast hopes the play will brighten people’s day.
“I feel like we live in such tumultuous times nowadays where everyone is so divided,” Times said. “It’s up to theater to tell us that there’s actually more things that connect us than divide us. I want people to laugh. I want people to have fun. If theater does that and also connects us to other people, I feel like we’ve done our jobs.”
The play will run 8 p.m. Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays and 2:30 p.m. Sundays. There will also be a matinee at 2:30 p.m. Sat., April 19. Tickets are $36-$57.
For tickets and more information, visit sunnyvaleplayers.org.
