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Analysis of William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream

By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on July 26, 2020 • ( 0 )

Nothing by Shakespeare before A Midsummer Night’s Dream is its equal and in some respects nothing by him afterwards surpasses it. It is his first undoubted masterpiece, with-out flaws, and one of his dozen or so plays of overwhelming originality and power.

—Harold Bloom, Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human

A Midsummer Night’s Dream is William Shakespeare’s first comic masterpiece and remains one his most beloved and performed plays. It seems reasonable to claim that on any fine night during the summer at an outdoor theater somewhere in the world an audience is being treated to the magic of the play. It is easy, however, to overlook through familiarity what a radically original and experimental play this is. A Midsummer Night’s Dream is the triumph of Shakespeare’s early play-writing career, a drama of such marked inventiveness and visionary reach that its first audiences must have only marveled at what could possibly come next from this extraordinary playwright. In it Shakespeare changed the paradigm of stage comedy that he had inherited from the Greeks and the Romans by dizzyingly multiplying his plot lines and by bringing the irrational and absurd illusions of romantic love center stage. He established human passion and gender relations as comedy’s prime subject, transforming such fundamental concepts as love, courtship, and marriage that have persisted in our culture ever since. If that is not enough A Midsummer Night’s Dream makes use of its romantic intrigue, supernatural setting, and rustic foolery to pose essential questions about the relationship between art and life, appearance and reality, truth and illusion, dreams and the waking world that anticipate the self-referential agenda of such avant-garde, metadramatists as Luigi Pirandello, Bertolt Brecht, and Tom Stoppard. A Midsummer Night’s Dream represents a kind of declaration of liberation for the stage, in which, after its example, nothing seems either off limits or impossible. In the play Theseus, the duke of Athens, after hearing the lovers’ strange story of what happened to them in the forest famously interprets their incredible account by linking the lovers with the lunatic and the poet:

One sees more devils than vast hell can hold, That is the madman: the lover, all as frantic, Sees Helen’s beauty in a brow of Egypt: The poet’s eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven, And as imagination bodies forth The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing A local habitation and a name. Such tricks hath strong imagination, That if it would but apprehend some joy, It comprehends some bringer of that joy: Or, in the night, imagining some fear, How easy is a bush suppos’d a bear!

A Midsummer Night’s Dream similarly gives a “local habitation and a name” on stage for what madness, love, and the poet’s imagination can conjure.

Shakespeare first made his theatrical reputation in the early 1590s with his Henry VI plays, with the historical chronicle genre that he pioneered. His early tragedies— Titus Andronicus and Romeo and Juliet —and comedies— The Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Taming of the Shrew, The Comedy of Errors, and Love’s Labour’s Lost —all show the playwright working within the dramatic conventions that he inherited from classical, medieval, and English folk sources. With A Midsummer Night’s Dream Shakespeare goes beyond imitation to discover a distinctive voice and manner that would add a new dramatic species. After A Midsummer Night’s Dream there was Old Comedy, New Comedy, and now Shakespearean comedy, a synthesis of both. To explain the origin and manner of A Midsummer Night’s Dream scholars have long relied on a speculative story so apt and evocative that it must be believed, even though there is no hard evidence to support it. Thought to have been written in the winter of 1593–94 to be performed at an aristocratic wedding attended by Queen Elizabeth, A Midsummer Night’s Dream therefore resembles the Renaissance masque, a fanciful mixture of allegorical and mythological enactments, music, dance, elegant costumes, and elaborate theatrical effects to entertain at banquets celebrating betrothals, weddings, and seasonal festivals such as May Day and Twelfth Night. In the words of Theseus at his own nuptial fete, the masque served “To wear away this long age of three hours / Between our after-supper and bed-time.” We do know from the title page of its initial publication in the First Quarto of 1600 that the play “hath been sundry times publikely acted” by Shakespeare’s company, but the notion that it had served as a wedding entertainment establishes the delightful fun-house mirroring of an actual wed-ding party first watching a play that included a wedding party watching a play. Such an appropriate scrambling of reality and illusion reflects the source of the humor and wonder of A Midsummer Night’s Dream .

A Midsummer Night’s Dream is one of just three plays out of Shakespeare’s 39 (the other two are Love’s Labour’s Lost and The Tempest ) for which the play-wright did not rely on a central primary source. Instead Shakespeare assembled elements from classical sources, romantic narratives, and English folk materials, along with details of ordinary Elizabethan life to juggle and juxtapose four different imaginative realms, each with its own distinctive social and literary conventions and language. Each is linked by analogy to the theme of love and its obstacles. The first is the classically derived court world of Theseus, duke of Athens, who has first conquered Hippolyta, queen of the Amazons, then won her heart, and now eagerly (and impatiently) anticipates their wedding. Their impending nuptials prompt the arrival of emissaries from the natural world, the king and queen of the fairies—Oberon and Titania—to bless their union, as well as a collection of “rude mechanicals”—Bottom, Quince, Flute, Starveling, Snout, and Snug—to devise a theatrical performance as entertainment at the Duke’s wedding celebration. To the world of the Athenian court, the alternate supernatural court world of the fairies, and the realistic sphere of the Athenian artisans, Shakespeare overlaps a fourth center of interest in the young lovers Hermia, Helena, Lysander, and Demetrius. Shakespeare mixes the dignified blank verse of Theseus and Hippolyta with the rhymed iambic speeches of the lovers, the rhymed tetrameter of the fairies, and the wonder-fully earthy prose of the rustics into a virtuoso’s performance of polyphonic verbal effects, the greatest Shakespeare, or any other dramatist, had yet sup-plied for the stage.

The complications commence when Hermia’s father, Egeus, objects to his daughter’s unsanctioned preference for Lysander over Demetrius, whom Egeus has selected for her. Egeus invokes Athenian law mandating death or celibacy for a maid’s refusal to abide by parental authority in the choice of a mate. Parental objection to the choice of young lovers was a standard plot device of Greek New Comedy and the Roman comedies of Plautus and Terence that Shakespeare inherited. To the obstacles placed in the lovers’ paths Shakespeare adds his own variation of the earlier Aristophanic Old Comedy’s break with the normalcy of everyday life by having his lovers escape into the forest. Critic Northrup Frye has called this symbolic setting of magical regeneration and vitality the “green world.” Here the lovers are tested and allowed the freedom and new possibilities to gain fulfillment and harmony denied them in the civilized world, in which duty dominates desire and obligation to parental authority and the law overrules self-interest and the heart’s promptings. Critic C. L. Barber has identified in such a departure from the norm a “Saturnalian Pattern” in Shakespearean comedy in which the lovers’ exile from the civilized to the primitive supplies the festive release that characterized the earliest forms of comic drama. Barber argues:

Once Shakespeare finds his own distinctive voice, he is more Aristophanic than any other great English dramatist, despite the fact that the accepted educated models and theories when he started to write were Terentian and Plautine. The Old Comedy cast of his work results from his participation in native saturnalian traditions of the popular theater and the popular holidays. . . . He used the resources of a sophisticated theater to express, in his idyllic comedies and in his clowns’ ironic misrule, the experience of moving to humorous understanding through saturnalian release.

Named for the summer solstice festival, when it was said that a maid could glimpse the man she would marry, A Midsummer Night’s Dream celebrates access to the uncanny and the breakup of all normal rules and social barriers to display human nature in the grips of elemental passions and the subconscious. The lovers in their moonlit, natural setting, at the mercy of the fairies, act out their deepest desires and hostilities in a full display of the power and absurdity of love both to change reality and to redeem it.

Hermia elopes with Lysander, pursued by Demetrius, who in turn is followed by Helena, whom he spurns. They enter a supernatural realm also beset by marital discord, jealousy, and rivalry. Oberon commands his servant Puck to place the juice of a flower once hit by Cupid’s dart in the eyes of the sleeping Titania to cause her to fall in love with the first creature she sees on awakening to help gain for Oberon the changeling boy Titania has refused to yield to him. Oberon, pitying Helena her rejection by Demetrius, also orders Puck to place some of the drops in Demetrius’s eyes so that he will be charmed into love with the woman who dotes on him. Instead Puck comes upon Lysander and Hermia as they sleep, mistakes Lysander for Demetrius, and pours the charm into the wrong eyes so that Lysander falls in love with Helena when she wakes him. Meanwhile Bottom and his companions have retreated to the woods to rehearse a dramatization of the mythological story of Pyramus and Thisbe, another set of star-crossed lovers. Puck gives the exuberant Bottom the head of an ass, and he becomes the first thing the charmed Titania sees on waking. Through the agency of the change of location from court to forest and from daylight to moonlight, with its attendant capacity for magical transformation, the play mounts a witty and uproarious display of the irrationality of love and its victims who see the world through the distorting lens of desire, in which certainty of affection is fleeting and a lover with the head of an ass can cause a queen to forgo her senses and her dignity. As Bottom aptly observes, “reason and love keep little company together now-a-days.” From the perspectives of the fairies the lovers’ absolute claims and earnest rationalizations of such a will-of-the-wisp as love makes them absurd. The tangled mixture of passion, jealousy, rancor, and violence that beset the young lovers after Puck imperfectly corrects his mistake, causing both Lysander and Demetrius to pursue the once spurned Helena, more than justifies Puck’s observation, “Lord, what fools these mortals be!”

By act 4 day returns, and the disorder of the night proves as fleeting and as insubstantial as a dream. After the four lovers are awakened by Theseus, Hippolyta, and Egeus, who are hunting in the woods, Lysander again loves Hermia, and Demetrius, still under the power of the potion, gives up his claim to her in favor of Helena. Theseus overrules Egeus’s objections and his own former strict adherence to Athenian law and gives both couples permission to marry that day, along with himself and Hippolyta. Having gained the change-ling boy from Titania, Oberon releases her from her spell. Puck removes the donkey’s head from Bottom, who awakes to wonder at his strange dream:

I have had a most rare vision. I have had a dream, past the wit of man to say what dream it was. Man is but an ass, if he go about to expound this dream. . . . I will get Peter Quince to write a ballad of this dream. It shall be call’d “Bottom’s Dream,” because it hath no bottom.

The only mortal allowed to see the fairies, Bottom is also the only character not threatened or diminished by the alternative fantasy realm he passes through. He freely accepts what he does not understand, considering it more suitable for the delight of art in a future ballad than to be analyzed or reduced by reason. Bottom coexists easily and honestly in the dual world of reality and illusion, maintaining his core identity and integrity even through his trans-formation, from man to ass, to fairy queen’s paramour, to ordinary man again. Called by Harold Bloom “Shakespeare’s most engaging character before Falstaff,” Bottom is the play’s human anchor and affirmation of the joyful acceptance of all the contradictions that the play has sent his way.

With the reconciliation of Oberon and Titania, Bottom’s reunion with his colleagues, and three Athenian weddings, the plot complications are all happily resolved, and act 5 shifts the emphasis from the potentially destructive vagaries of love to a celebration of marriage to crown and contain human desire. Shakespeare’s final sleight of hand and delightful invention, however, is the play within the play, the “tedious and brief” and “very tragical mirth” of the performance of Pyramus and Thisbe by Bottom and his players. In a drama fueled by the complications between appearance and reality this hilariously incompetent burlesque by the play’s rustic clowns impersonating tragic lovers appropriately comments on the play that has preceded it. The drama of Pyramus and Thisbe involves another set of lovers who face parental objections and similarly seek relief in nature, but their adventure goes tragically awry. However, just as Hermia, Lysander, Helena, and Demetrius avoid through the stage-managing of the fairies a potentially tragic fate from their ordeal in the wood, so is the tragic fate of Pyramus and Thisbe transformed to comedy by the ineptitude of Bottom’s company. The play within the play becomes a pointed microcosm for A Midsummer Night’s Dream as a whole in its conversion of potential tragedy to curative comedy. The newlyweds, who mock the absurdity of Pyramus and Thisbe , fail to make the connection with their own absurd encounter with love and their chance rescue from its anguish, but the actual audience should not. In Shakespeare’s comprehensive comic vision we both laugh at the ridiculousness of others while recognizing ourselves in their dilemmas. Shakespeare’s final point about the inseparability of reality and illusion is scored by having the fairy world coexist with the Athenian court at the play’s conclusion, decreasing the gap between fact and fancy and invading actuality itself by giving the final words to Puck, who addresses the audience directly:

If we shadows have offended, Think but this, and all is mended, That you have but slumb’red here While these visions did appear. And this weak and idle theme, No more yielding but a dream.

Like the newlyweds who view a drama that calls attention to its illusion and its “tragical mirth,” the audience is here reminded of the similar blending of reality and dream, the comic and the tragic in the world beyond the stage. Puck serves as Shakespeare’s magician’s assistant, demonstrating that substance and shadow on stage replicate both the illusion of the dramatist’s art and the essence of human life in our own continual interplay of reality, dreams, and desire.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream Oxford Lecture by Prof. Emma Smith

A Midsummer Night’s Dream Ebook PDF (5 MB)

Harold Bloom, Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human PDF (7 MB)

Analysis of William Shakespeare’s Plays

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A Midsummer Night's Dream

William shakespeare, ask litcharts ai: the answer to your questions.

Welcome to the LitCharts study guide on William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream . Created by the original team behind SparkNotes, LitCharts are the world's best literature guides.

Midsummer: Introduction

Midsummer: plot summary, midsummer: detailed summary & analysis, midsummer: themes, midsummer: quotes, midsummer: characters, midsummer: symbols, midsummer: literary devices, midsummer: quizzes, midsummer: theme wheel, brief biography of william shakespeare.

Other Books Related to A Midsummer Night's Dream

• Full Title: A Midsummer Night's Dream
• When Written: Early to mid 1590s
• Where Written: England
• When Published: 1600 (though it was first performed earlier, probably between 1594-96).
• Literary Period: The Renaissance (1500 - 1660)
• Genre: Comic drama
• Setting: The city of Athens and the forest just outside, in some distant, ancient time when it was ruled by the mythological hero Theseus.

Extra Credit for A Midsummer Night's Dream

Shakespeare or Not? There are some who believe Shakespeare wasn't educated enough to write the plays attributed to him. The most common anti-Shakespeare theory is that Edward de Vere, the Earl of Oxford, wrote the plays and used Shakespeare as a front man because aristocrats were not supposed to write plays. Yet the evidence supporting Shakespeare's authorship far outweighs any evidence against. So until further notice, Shakespeare is still the most influential writer in the English language.

A Midsummer Night's Parallel. Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet around the same time he wrote A Midsummer Night's Dream . In A Midsummer Night's Dream , Shakespeare mocks tragic love stories through the escapades of the lovers in the forests and the ridiculous version of Pyramus and Thisbe (a tragic romance from Ovid's Metamorphoses ) that Bottom and his company perform. So at the same time Shakespeare was writing the greatest love story ever told, he was also mocking the conventions of such love stories. It's almost as if Shakespeare was saying, "Yeah, it's tired, it's old, and I can still do it better than anyone else ever could."

A Summary and Analysis of William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

The diarist Samuel Pepys wasn’t a fan of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream . Seeing a performance of the play in 1662, he wrote in his diary that it was ‘the most insipid ridiculous play that ever I saw in my life’ (though he adds that he liked the dancing, as well as the ‘handsome women’ he saw, ‘which was all my pleasure’).

Despite Pepys’ lack of enthusiasm (for the play itself, anyway), A Midsummer Night’s Dream remains one of Shakespeare’s most enduringly popular comedies. Before we offer some analysis of this play of magic and romance, it might be worth recapping the plot.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream : short plot summary

Theseus, the Duke of Athens, is getting ready to marry Hippolyta, the Queen of the Amazons, the race of female warriors from Greek mythology. Meanwhile, another planned marriage, between Hermia and Demetrius has been upset by the fact that another man, Lysander, has supposedly bewitched Hermia into loving him instead of her betrothed. Because Hermia’s father, Egeus, wants his daughter to marry Demetrius, Theseus (as Duke) orders Hermia to marry Demetrius or else enter a nunnery and take no husband.

Faced with this rather unappealing choice, Hermia decides to elope with her beloved, Lysander. Hermia confides this plan to her friend Helena, but Helena blabs it to Demetrius (whom Helena wants to marry herself).

Meanwhile, a group of manual workers, each with their own trade (Nick Bottom the weaver, Peter Quince the carpenter, Francis Flute the bellows-mender, etc.), meet to rehearse a play, based on the story of Pyramus and Thisbe from Greek mythology, which they will be performing as the entertainment at Theseus and Hippolyta’s wedding.

Meanwhile meanwhile, Oberon, King of the Fairies, tasks the mischievous sprite, Puck or Robin Goodfellow, to go and find the juice of a magic plant which has a peculiar quality: when sprinkled on the eyes of a sleeping person, they will wake up and fall for the first person they see.

Oberon, to convince his wife, Queen Titania to dote on their changeling child, sprinkles the juice on her eyes. Oberon tells Puck to do the same to Demetrius’ eyes so he will wake up and fall for Helena rather than Hermia. However, Puck accidentally sprinkles the plant on the wrong man, administering it to Lysander’s eyes instead of Demetrius’!

To amuse himself, Puck uses his magic to give Bottom the weaver an ass’s head in place of his human head, and when Titania wakes up she sees him and dotes on him, sending for her fairy attendants (Peaseblossom, Cobweb, Mustardseed, and Moth) to wait upon Bottom. Oberon has tried to correct Puck’s mix-up with Demetrius and Lysander by sprinkling Demetrius’ eyes with the magic juice, with the result that both men now love the same woman: Helena!

They all, thankfully, fall asleep, and while they snooze, Oberon uses his fairy magic to release them all from their various love-spells, and everyone ends up fancying the right person: Lysander is with Hermia, Demetrius with Helena, and Bottom has his proper head back. They all go to Athens for the royal wedding, and the workers perform their play about Pyramus and Thisbe.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream : analysis

As Harold Bloom pointed out in Shakespeare: The Invention Of The Human , four worlds essentially come together and interact with each other in A Midsummer Night’s Dream : the world of classical myth (represented by Theseus and Hippolyta), the world of ‘modern’ lovers (Helena, Hermia, Demetrius, and Lysander), the fairy world (Oberon, Titania, and Puck), and the rustic world of ‘mechanicals’ or labourers (Bottom, Quince, and the others).

But instead of these four worlds being kept distinct, the boundaries between them are transgressed, most famously when Titania, the Fairy Queen (perhaps recalling Queen Elizabeth I herself, whom Edmund Spenser had recently immortalised as such in his 1590s poem The Faerie Queene ) falls for the lowly Bottom, whose head has been replaced by that of an ass.

In Shakespeare’s Language , Frank Kermode analysed A Midsummer Night’s Dream as the comic counterpart to the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet ; both plays date from the mid-1590s, and it may be that Shakespeare intentionally conceived of A Midsummer Night’s Dream as a sort of inverse of the other play about ‘the course of true love’ (although that quotation comes from A Midsummer Night’s Dream , it is in Romeo and Juliet that the course of true love fails to run smooth; all is worked out in the end in the Dream ).

Kermode also notes how many eyes there are in A Midsummer Night’s Dream : the words ‘eye’ and ‘eyes’ recur multiple times, and the gulf between illusion and reality is a key theme in the play. Our eyes can trick or deceive us; we can ‘dote’ on someone but that is not the same as loving them in a deeper and more long-lasting way; we create fantasies or, if you will, ‘dreams’ of our lovers which they can never live up to, and which put us at risk of a rude awakening further down the line.

Helena’s famously line, ‘Love looks not with the eyes but with the mind’, sums up the main ‘message’ of the play: that wanton love (lust, passing desire) is not true love, which is about more than superficial attraction or ‘looks’. The fact that the juice which makes people fall in ‘love’ with the next person they see when they wake up is from a flower called ‘love-in-idleness’ is a clue: for ‘idleness’ here, Kermode directs us to ‘wantonness’, which is what ‘idleness’ means in this connection.

From this, we might conclude that A Midsummer Night’s Dream represents the triumph of rational, lasting love over the pleasures of illusory love of attraction. But this overlooks the extent to which Shakespeare, the man of the theatre, loved illusion, and repeatedly vaunted its virtues in his work.

And Bottom’s transformation, whereby he ends up with the head of an ass, complicates any reductive analysis of the play which sees it as calling illusory love ‘bad’ and the other kind ‘good’.

As so often in the work of Shakespeare, this simplistic interpretation just won’t stand up. Bottom’s ‘rare vision’ of Titania invites our laughter, but it is sympathetic laughter: there is a sense that he has been emotionally as well as physically transformed by the night’s events. For Bloom, Bottom, the humble weaver, is the key to the play, and more than just a bit of rustic comic relief.

But Bloom’s assertion that ‘love at first sight, exalted in Romeo and Juliet , is pictured here as calamity’, is only partially true. Whilst the couples ultimately get paired off as we expect them to, Titania and Bottom’s moment together transcends comedic farce, and suggests that they have both been forever altered by the experience – not least because they don’t usually come into contact with each other (workman and queen, mortal and fairy).

For one, it is while she is under the spell of Bottom’s … unconventional looks that Titania agrees to give up the changeling boy to her husband, who wants to make the child his page.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream remains a popular play, and is often staged. In 1911, Herbert Beerbohm Tree staged a celebrated production which included live rabbits on stage. Indeed, there have been a number of ambitious productions of the play: Charles Kean’s 1856 production at the Princess’s Theatre featured 90 tutu-wearing sprites as part of the finale. Also appearing in the show was an eight-year-old Ellen Terry, playing the role of Puck.

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3 thoughts on “A Summary and Analysis of William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream”

Great reminder of a great play (sorry Pepys)! Another interesting note about how the 4 worlds connect and disconnect. As I recall, Demetrius never gets the juice removed and hence stays in love with Helena. If so, the enchantment that Demetrius carries is the lynchpin that holds the worlds — and the happy ending — together. The world of imagination may seem like an escape from the world of reality, but as often happens in Shakespeare, that “frivolous” world of imagination effects a crucial transformation of reality.

also hear BBC ‘In their Time’ (Bragg) discussion on ’12th Night’- 40 minutes of interesting discussion by three experts.

• Pingback: Sunday Post – 21st June, 2020 #Brainfluffbookblog #SundayPost | Brainfluff

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A midsummer night’s dream.

Rotimi Agbabiaka (Oberon), Jacob Ming-Trent (Bottom), and Sabrina Lynne Sawyer (Fairy) in  A Midsummer Night’s Dream , Folger Theatre, 2022. Photo: Brittany Diliberto.

Introduction to the play

In A Midsummer Night’s Dream , Shakespeare stages the workings of love. Theseus and Hippolyta, about to marry, are figures from mythology. In the woods outside Theseus’s Athens, two young men and two young women sort themselves out into couples—but not before they form first one love triangle, and then another.

Also in the woods, the king and queen of fairyland, Oberon and Titania, battle over custody of an orphan boy; Oberon uses magic to make Titania fall in love with a weaver named Bottom, whose head is temporarily transformed into that of a donkey by a hobgoblin or “puck,” Robin Goodfellow. Finally, Bottom and his companions ineptly stage the tragedy of “Pyramus and Thisbe.”

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Essays and resources from The Folger Shakespeare

A midsummer night’s dream.

Learn more about the play, its language, and its history from the experts behind our edition.

About Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream An introduction to the plot, themes, and characters in the play

Quotes from A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Reading Shakespeare’s Language A guide for understanding Shakespeare’s words, sentences, and wordplay

An Introduction to This Text A description of the publishing history of the play and our editors’ approach to this edition

Textual Notes A record of the variants in the early printings of this text

A Modern Perspective An essay by Catherine Belsey

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Shakespeare and his world

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Shakespeare’s Life An essay about Shakespeare and the time in which he lived

Shakespeare’s Theater An essay about what theaters were like during Shakespeare’s career

The Publication of Shakespeare’s Plays An essay about how Shakespeare’s plays were published

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A Midsummer Night’s Dream was first printed in 1600 as a quarto (Q1). In 1619, a new quarto of the play was published (Q2) based on Q1 but with some additional stage directions and some small corretions to the text. That text, in turn, was the basis for the 1623 First Folio (F1) with, again, some minor changes, including the substitution of Egeus for Philostrate in the final scene of the play. Most modern editions, like the Folger editions, are based on the Q1 text. See more primary sources related to A Midsummer Night’s Dream on Shakespeare Documented

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86 A Midsummer Night’s Dream Essay Topics & Examples

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Home — Essay Samples — Literature — Plays — A Midsummer Night's Dream

Essays on A Midsummer Night's Dream

William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night's Dream is a timeless comedy that has been the subject of study and analysis for centuries. As a student, choosing the right essay topic is crucial to crafting a compelling and well-researched paper. In this guide, we will discuss the importance of choosing the right topic and provide a detailed list of recommended essay topics, divided by category.

Choosing the right essay topic is crucial for several reasons. First, it allows you to explore themes, characters, and literary devices in the play. Second, a well-chosen topic can make your essay more engaging for both you and your audience. Finally, it allows you to showcase your analytical and critical thinking skills.

Advice on Choosing a Topic

When choosing a topic for your A Midsummer Night's Dream essay, consider your interests and the aspects of the play that resonate with you. Think about the themes, characters, and literary elements that you find most compelling. Additionally, consider the scope of your assignment and choose a topic that allows for in-depth analysis within the given parameters.

Recommended Essay Topics

• The role of love and its different manifestations in the play
• The theme of magic and its significance in the plot
• The contrast between reality and illusion in the play
• The theme of order and disorder in the play
• The portrayal of gender dynamics and power in the play
• The theme of dreams and their implications in the play
• An analysis of the character of Puck and his role in the play
• The transformation of Bottom and its significance in the play
• An exploration of the complexities of the relationship between Hermia and Helena
• The portrayal of Theseus and Hippolyta as rulers and lovers
• The character of Oberon and his influence on the events of the play
• Discuss the character of Puck and his role in the play
• Analyze the character of Titania and her relationship with Oberon
• Compare and contrast the different lovers in the play
• Explore the motivations and actions of the characters in the play
• Examine the role of the mechanicals in the play

Literary Elements

• An analysis of the use of imagery and symbolism in the play
• The role of the supernatural in driving the plot forward
• An exploration of the use of language and wordplay in the play
• The significance of the play within a play structure in A Midsummer Night's Dream
• An examination of the use of comedy and its impact on the audience

Comparative Topics

• Comparing the theme of love in A Midsummer Night's Dream with another Shakespearean play
• An analysis of the portrayal of women in A Midsummer Night's Dream and another work of literature
• Comparing the use of supernatural elements in A Midsummer Night's Dream and another play or novel
• An exploration of the role of the fool or comedic character in A Midsummer Night's Dream and another play
• Comparing the themes of reality and illusion in A Midsummer Night's Dream with another work of literature

Love and Relationships

• Discuss the theme of love in A Midsummer Night's Dream
• Compare and contrast the different relationships in the play
• Explore the concept of unrequited love in the play
• Analyze the role of magic in influencing the characters' love lives
• Examine the portrayal of gender roles and relationships in the play

Magic and Fantasy

• Discuss the significance of the fairy world in the play
• Analyze the role of magic in shaping the events of the play
• Compare and contrast the use of magic by different characters
• Explore the theme of illusion and reality in the play
• Examine the portrayal of supernatural elements in the play

Conflict and Resolution

• Discuss the conflicts that arise in the play and how they are resolved
• Analyze the role of misunderstandings and mistaken identities in the play
• Compare and contrast the different types of conflicts in the play
• Explore the theme of reconciliation in A Midsummer Night's Dream
• Examine the role of comedy in resolving conflicts in the play

Social and Historical Context

• Discuss the portrayal of class and social hierarchy in the play
• Analyze the influence of Greek mythology on the play
• Compare and contrast the societal norms of the time with the events of the play
• Explore the role of the supernatural in Elizabethan England
• Examine the portrayal of love and marriage in the play

The Theme of Vision and Sight in a Midsummer Night's Dream

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Exploration of The Nature of Love in a Midsummer Night's Dream

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The Ecofeminist Layer of a Midsummer Night's Dream

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c. 1595 or 1596, by William Shakespeare

The play is set in Athens, and consists of several subplots that revolve around the marriage of Theseus and Hippolyta. One subplot involves a conflict among four Athenian lovers. Another follows a group of six amateur actors rehearsing the play which they are to perform before the wedding. Both groups find themselves in a forest inhabited by fairies who manipulate the humans and are engaged in their own domestic intrigue.

The main themes and motifs of the play are: lovers' bliss, carnivalesque, love, problem with time, loss of individual identity, ambiguous sexuality, and feminism.

Theseus, Puck, Oberon, Titania, Lysander, Demetrius, Hermia, Helena, Egeus, Philostrate, Peter Quince, Nick Bottom, Francis Flute, Tom Snout, Snug

Though it is not a translation or adaptation of an earlier work, various sources such as Ovid's Metamorphoses and Chaucer's "The Knight's Tale" served as inspiration. Aristophanes' classical Greek comedy The Birds (also set in the countryside near Athens) has been proposed as a source due to the fact that both Procne and Titania are awakened by male characters (Hoopoe and Bottom the Weaver) who have animal heads and who sing two-stanza songs about birds.

One of the “great” or “middle” comedies, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, with its multilayered examination of love and its vagaries, has long been one of the most popular of Shakespeare’s plays.

“Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.” “Though she be but little, she is fierce!” “The course of true love never did run smooth.” “And yet,to say the truth, reason and love keep little company together nowadays.”

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A Midsummer Night's Dream William Shakespeare

Midsummer Night's Dream literature essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of Midsummer Night's Dream.

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A Midsummer Night’s Dream Essays

Doubt and uncertainty in relation to theatricality in hamlet and a midsummer night's dream emaleigh doley, a midsummer night's dream.

In the tragedy Hamlet and the comedy A Midsummer Night's Dream, Shakespeare presents two plays that are very different in context but quite similar in foundation. Both plays examine reality throughout the narrative structure. In Hamlet, reality is...

To See or Not To See: Vision, Night and Day in A Midsummer Night's Dream Eddie Borey

A Midsummer Night's Dream begins in the city that was, to the Renaissance imagination, the center of ancient Greek civilization. (Romanticized) Athens stands as a testament to what human beings know and are able to know. But throughout this play,...

Character Analysis of Puck Ambre Smith

Considered one of William Shakespeare's greatest plays, A Midsummer Nights Dream reads like a fantastical, imaginative tale; however, its poetic lines contain a message of love, reality, and chance that are not usually present in works of such...

Phases in the Play Nicole Encin

William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream is a journey through the three phases of a Shakespearean festive comedy. The audience is taken from unhappiness to confusion to finally reunion. Anything is possible in this story and the reader must...

Dream Within a Dream: Freud, Phonics, and Fathomlessness in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" Theoderek Wayne

Shakespeare anticipates the Freudian concept of the dream as egoistic wish-fulfillment through the chaotic and mimetic desires of his characters in "A Midsummer Night's Dream." The play also utilizes a secondary meaning of the word "dream" -...

Puck and Bottom: The Artist as Interpreter in A Midsummer Night's Dream Willie Davis

When James Joyce was a teenager, a friend asked him if he had ever been in love. He answered, "How would I write the most perfect love songs of our time if I were in love - A poet must always write about a past or a future emotion, never about a...

The Theater as Irrational Distillate in A Midsummer Night's Dream Michael Yank

By the time A Midsummer Night's Dream reaches its final act, the major conflicts of the play have already more or less been resolved. Thus, instead of serving its usual function, this comedy's Act V offers the audience a chance to reflect on what...

Hippolyta's Function in A Midsummer Night's Dream Brook Weeks

In William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, the minor character Hippolyta functions in three ways. Her first role in the play is as an example of mature love in juxtaposition to the two immature Athenian couples. Her second purpose in the...

Seeing Without Reason: Vision in A Midsummer Night's Dream Natasha Rosow

In A Midsummer Night's Dream, William Shakespeare plays with ideas of sight and reality. Sight, eyes, and the gaze become crucial themes in this seemingly light-hearted play. They appear constantly in the language of all of the characters, beyond...

Puck, as the Dark Middle Man Catherine McCormick

The character Puck, or Robin Goodfellow, is most often associated with the mischievous little hobgoblin fairy in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Even before Shakespeare's interpretation of Puck though, the little imp had been one of the...

The Light and Dark Sides of the Supernatural Mark Parsons

As critic Ronald Miller so eloquently declared, "The complex and subtle intellectuality of Shakespeare's comic art was never better illustrated than by A Midsummer Night's Dream and, in particular, by Shakespeare's employment of the fairies in...

Feminine Homoeroticism in A Midsummer Night's Dream and As You Like It Julie Kim

In Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream and As You Like It, feminine homoeroticism emerges as an interplay of passive and aggressive opposition. Women take the sphere of romantic love -- one sphere to which they have access in the midst of an...

Play Within a Play in a Midsummer Night's Dream Terilynn Salazar

William Shakespeare frequently used his literary works to make statements on social issues. A Midsummer Night's Dream obviously addresses the conflict between men and women by portraying several relationships, father and daughter, husband and...

Myth, Magic and Midsummer Madness Jonet Mackenzie

In a fine example of Shakespearean irony, scholars have suggested that A Midsummer Night's Dream was originally written as entertainment for an aristocratic wedding. The Lord Chamberlain's Players provided the noble bride and groom, the ultimate...

A Hel-en-a Woman Kelli Purcell-O'Brien

In William Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream, Hermia seems to be the strong woman, while Helena is seen as weak and easily dominated. In Gohlke's article, for example, she describes the "exaggerated submission of Helena to Demetrius" (151),...

It is Theater Virginia Brannon

Theatre began as a presentation of stories and ideas, mostly revolving around festival times in the calendar of the church year. This concept was carried on in Shakespeare's times and is exemplified in his plays Twelfth Night, or What You Will and...

Explore the ways in which Shakespeare uses metatheatre in his plays Anonymous

Explore the ways in which Shakespeare uses metatheatre in his plays

All the world's a stage

And all the men and women merely players;

They have their exits and their entrances,

And one man in his time plays many parts

~ Jacques, As You Like It, Act II,...

A Lover's Embrace Anonymous

Can the ocean be considered a lover? Is it possible for someone to find a strong infatuation with the rolling waves and the smell of salt water? Does the sea have the capacity to love someone? Looking out into the waters, the female character in...

Bottom’s Dream Dusty Carter

Bottom’s speech at the end of Act 4, Scene 1 of A Midsummer Night’s Dream marks a transition from a dream world to reality. In it, Bottom struggles to make his dream of an encounter with Titania the fairy queen into something concrete. Bottom’s...

Puck and Shakespeare in A Midsummer Night’s Dream Anonymous

What motivates Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream? Also known as Robin Goodfellow, the spirit Puck is based on legend contemporary to Shakespeare (OED). His origins are as curious as his character: the Oxford English Dictionary traces the origin of...

A Midsummer Night’s Dream: Sisterhood versus Male Inconstancy Anonymous

In his comedies, Shakespeare critically examines the nature of female and male friendships as they relate to sexual desire. Specifically, Shakespeare contrasts the strong, faithful bonds of female sisterhood with the chaotic, contentious...

A Critical Analysis of Egeus, Hippolyta and Shylock in Filmic Shakespeare Tyler Fuller

In ‘The Motives of Eloquence’, Lantham describes Shakespearean drama as the art of “superposition”. One arc of action is performed over others so that “[d]ramatic motive is stronger than ‘real’, serious motive”. The justification of a characters...

Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream: Exploring the Existence of Love Anonymous

“The lunatic, the lover, and the poet are of an imagination all compact" (Act 5, Scene 1, Lines 7-8). This quote by Theseus encompasses the notion of love as being an illusion, a product of the imagination. Love is equated with lunacy and poetry,...

Women's Confirmity in A Midsummer Night's Dream and Othello Anonymous College

Emilia from Othello and Helena from A Midsummer Night’s Dream both experience a constant battle against the institutions of men, such as marriage and courting. These institutions have the implications of turning these women against their own sex...

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Everyman Theatre refreshes Shakespeare’s ‘Midsummer’ with ’70s music, ’80s glam

For director Noah Himmelstein, a seed was planted watching Michelle Yeoh’s 2023 Oscar speech.

The 60-year-old actress, whose win for “Everything Everywhere All at Once” made her the first Asian woman to take home the Academy Award for a leading role, spoke directly to the women in the audience: “Ladies, don’t let anybody tell you you are ever past your prime.” It was a gentle jab at an industry that slaps an expiration date on women while older men are handed starring roles. “The industry doesn’t celebrate actors as they get older or reward all that artists of a certain age can bring,” Himmelstein said.

So what happens when actors at the peak of their practice get a crack at roles usually reserved for 20-year-olds? Everyman Theatre aims to find out with a production of one of Shakespeare’s most beloved comedies, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” in which the four traditionally young lovers are played by actors in midlife.

“We want to feature the richness that these actors can bring that a young artist doesn’t necessarily have,” Himmelstein said of the casting for the play, which runs through June 9 . “By going a generation older than the characters are written, could it be an opportunity to find new layers of comedy and pathos in the play? And could this casting be even more moving and even funnier?”

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Everyman’s production revolves around the conceit that “four people [in midlife] come into a space having lost something,” he said. It’s the music that pulls them back in time, as one of the characters presses play on a boombox and the strains of Stevie Nicks begin to work magic.

Dreams, fantasy and a journey through memory are felicitous themes for a Shakespearean work in which aristocratic lovers and rough-edged laborers alike are drawn into the forest, where their paths are crisscrossed with fairies. It’s a dreamscape of risqué revelry that leads them to the edges of their boundaries and brings them through the other side, transformed.

10 Baltimore theaters will take on 10 August Wilson plays

Stories conjured in plastic, clay and wood: 4 art exhibits mix meaning and material, as funds run dry, a program for young storytellers enters its final chapter.

With his seasoned actors in place, Himmelstein and his team began to play with a concept: a “Midsummer” influenced by the period of the actors’ youth — the late ’70s and early ’80s. In rehearsals, they explored the experience of the young lovers, mad with hormones and romantic fixation, by remembering their own first experiences of blistering crushes and mesmerizing devotion.

But in referencing the era, Himmelstein and the show’s costumer, David Burdick, had something much more subtle and evocative in mind than neon and leg warmers. “The idea of the ’70s and ’80s is an emotional idea,” Himmelstein said. “The freedom and the fearlessness of the younger self is the gateway into the subconscious of these actors. We are asking the audience to go on a journey of make-believe.”

The show takes cues from the New Romantics, the London club scene movement of the 1980s defined by flamboyant flourishes, glittering stage makeup and androgynous gender-bending. Adam Ant, Boy George and Culture Club and, of course, the iconic David Bowie — all “densely poetic artists,” Himmelstein said — influenced the magical world created for this iteration of the Shakespeare classic.

We don’t stay in the London clubs, though, with Burdick also leaning on Diana Ross (especially her epic 1983 Central Park concert), Chaka Khan and Fleetwood Mac for source material — artists who disrupted societal boundaries and spun magic just as “Midsummer” does.

But is it a period piece? Not at all. “It’s total fantasy,” Burdick said, drawing from mythology, the world of ancient Greece and contemporary fashion design. In “Midsummer,” Shakespeare grants us license to chase one another uninhibited through the woods, to find ourselves in the Fairy Queen’s bower, to act on urges normally hidden away. So while this “Midsummer” is infused with ’80s glam, it’s not limited by it.

We’re treated to nostalgic echoes and fragments of the era. Puck evokes that kid in a leather jacket who was always playing guitar behind the bleachers, and somehow the whole thing feels delightfully like we’re rolling in on a high school dance after the punch got spiked. “Great comedy also has that level of melancholy, of ‘what if’ and ‘what could have been,’” Himmelstein said of the way youth and memory infuse the production.

For the actors, rehearsing to Bowie and running around like adolescents could be a time warp. “The more adult we become, the more contained and controlled and measured we have to be,” said Natalya Lynette Rathnam, who plays Hermia. “But these characters experience such extreme emotions: extreme joy, extreme despair, extreme love.” And playing a teenager in midlife is also difficult on the body. “Physically, I can’t do everything I used to even five years ago. It’s great to be wild and free … but with knee pads and PT appointments,” Rathnam laughed.

“Your insecurities get provoked,” said Bruce Randolph Nelson, who plays Lysander. “You are a 58-year-old man playing a 20-year-old in a wig. You think, ‘What has your life become?’”

Despite these hazards, the production has offered these established actors a chance to explore the classic roles in new ways. “It’s a gift to revisit the character,” said Rathnam, who has played Hermia before. “You look back and wish you could play the role again with the acting experience you have now.” Now she can, and she’s noticed new things about the character this time around: “Hermia is courageous, she’s brave, and it comes from her being very sure about her opinion and view.”

Nelson, usually a comic actor, has played Bottom in the past, but said he is rarely cast as “the lover type,” which has stretched him in new ways. “I’m playing a lover, but a young lover — a 20-something — who is impetuous, not thinking things through and flying on a lot of emotional energy. It’s been fun taking this on, but it’s hard work!” he said.

While the play was written in the late 16th century, Himmelstein noted the work reflects so much of our modern world, from threats to women’s bodily autonomy (Hermia faces arranged marriage or death) to calls for eco-justice (as Titania and Oberon’s fracture disrupts the balance of nature). “Midsummer” holds out the hopeful possibility that society can be transformed, even redeemed through our own truth-awakening experiences — if we are brave enough to set out through the woods.

But most of all, Himmelstein says he wants to simply create the “most fun, accessible way into the play. The ’80s were fun with a capital F.” And really, who doesn’t want to turn back time? Even if our knees are a touch creaky, we, too, can press play on the boombox and, carried away by a hit of nostalgia from those opening chords, take another crack at young love.

Emily M. D. Scott is a the author of “For All Who Hunger: Searching for Communion in a Shattered World.” She is also a pastor, serving St. Mark’s Lutheran Church and Dreams and Visions in Baltimore.

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‘Midsummer Night’s Dream’ enchants as 1980s teen comedy at Everyman Theatre

This wonderful and joyous production hinges on the existential question 'My God, are we gonna be like our parents?'

Everyman Theatre closes its season with an enchanting and jubilant adaptation of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Expertly directed with pizzazz by Associate Artistic Director Noah Himmelstein, this must-see production’s novel concept by adapter Gavin Witt is brilliantly realized through the thoughtful work of dramaturg Robyn Quick.

The induction scene begins as four folks (three Resident Company members, Deborah Hazlett, Bruce Randolph Nelson, Jefferson A. Russell, and Natalya Lynnette Rathnam in her Everyman debut) wander onto a foggy stage, which is decorated as an old theater storage space, with some stacked chairs and chandeliers on the floor. What has drawn them back to this uncanny site of their youth? Are they here for a high school reunion? Is this where they performed in high school productions 20-plus years before? They explore the terrain and pick up nostalgic items. As one slips a cassette tape into a dusty old boombox, they begin swaying to Fleetwood Mac’s “Seven Wonders,” warm smiles of past memories lighting their faces. Fairies emerge from the shadows, cast a spell over the four, and lead them offstage and into their magical realm, a stage (beautifully designed by Daniel Ettinger) that evolves into an Art Deco theater wonder, where the geometric designs become the trees of the fairy forest outside of Athens.

The four soon reappear in the first act as Helena, Hermia, Demetrius, and Lysander. The production’s fresh approach—casting four middle-aged actors as the young Athenian lovers—both plays to the strengths of Everyman’s ensemble and creates a beautiful study of nostalgia and how our formative teen years create who we become, whether repressing or heartily embracing youthful desires. (There is precedent for playing with casting ages, such as 82-year-old Sir Ian McKellan playing the youthful Danish prince in Theatre Royal Windsor’s 2021 production of Hamlet .)

This Midsummer hinges on the existential question posed by John Hughes, the director of white, suburban, Midwest, teenage comedies of the 1980s, in The Breakfast Club : “My God, are we gonna be like our parents?”

Nelson is a randy, raunchy Lysander and he finds little comedic tics at every opportunity, such as when he bests a foe using only the auburn locks of his wig (Denise O’Brien’s fantastic wigs top many heads in this play). Hazlett offers pathos as the dismissed Helena who still pines for Demetrius and follows at his heels like a spurned spaniel. Russell is a feisty Demetrius, always ready for a brawl. And Rathnam shines as Hermia, a little spitfire with a black fringed bob and a canary-colored dress, who speaks in an affected manner, overstressing the heroic rhymes of this poetic comedy to great effect. They quite literally throw themselves on one another in wooing scenes, and the slapstick fighting among the four even includes that worst fate of middle school arguments: purple nurples. The follies of youth extend well beyond the teen years, showing that our deepest fears and desires don’t really grow and evolve. What fools these (middle-aged) mortals be!

The production offers time travel by interpolating music that would’ve been popular when the lovers were at prom or starring in their high school Shakespeare production in the 1980s: pop songs by the likes of David Bowie and Janet Jackson and from the era’s film soundtrack standards ( Dirty Dancing, Labyrinth) punctuate scene changes, the cast dances and lip syncs to Jefferson Starship, and Puck plays an acoustic guitar and Rickrolls the crowd by singing Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up.” We all know the power of a favorite song to bring us back to a first kiss, slow dance, or breakup, and the sound design by Pornchanok Kanchanabanca plays with aural nostalgia with aplomb.

The delightfully ingenious costumes for the Athenian lovers by David Burdick also hint at prom attire (cummerbunds, formal menswear worn with Converses, or Hermia’s dress covered by a zipped hoodie and backpack) without becoming too literal or looking silly on the adult cast. (Likewise, Burdick’s costuming is smartly themed across the production from the Rude Mechanicals’ penchant for denim, the fairies dressed like children putting on all their favorite, neon-colored mismatched pieces and tutus at once, the beautiful regal wear of the two royal couples, and Puck’s fringed trousers that hint at a faun’s shaggy goat legs.)

The world of the fairies where the lovers find themselves is a place of magic but also menacing. As the royals—both the divine fairies Titania and Oberon, and the Athenian king Theseus and his Amazon bride Hippolyta—Andreá Bellamore and René Thornton Jr. (both in their Everyman debuts) are regal and beautiful, but also petty, jealous, petulant, and sometimes cruel. Zack Powell brings all the zaniness and mayhem as the mischievous sprite Puck, dashing across the stage, flashing a brilliant smile, strumming his guitar, and gracefully climbing the stage’s scaffolding.

There is magic galore—love potions, time stopping, sleights of hand, and more (Aja M. Jackson’s exquisite lighting design, original music by Kanchanabanca, quick-paced choreography by Shalyce Hemby, and Lewis Shaw leading intimacy and fight sequences) add to this mystical world. This leads to a sense of darkness and danger: the fairies’ feud has led to a climate catastrophe, the lovers are manipulated and humiliated before pairing off into couples again, Bottom is transformed into a donkey, and even Puck expresses fear of haunted spirits in the woods. And can one ever really forgive Oberon for his cruel trick against Titania in making her engage in bestiality and also stealing her adopted son (portrayed by a sympathetic puppet), the child of a dead beloved friend?

Titania’s train of playful and bewitching spirits played by Suzanna Catherine Fox, Helen Hedman, Hanah Kelly, and James Whelan double as the incredibly funny Rude Mechanicals, and Tony Nam leads the acting troupe as the bombastic but good-natured Bottom. Only the second Shakespeare production for Everyman, this particular play with its focus on an acting troupe aligns so beautifully with the rarity of Everyman Theatre’s resident acting company. These actors develop trust and relationships by working together so often, and anticipate each other’s movements and choices so deeply. It’s always a joy to see how much fun they seem to have in each other’s company.

A highlight of any Midsummer worth its weight in pixie dust is the final play-within-a-play, and this one’s no exception. Fox is a naughty Flute/Thisbe who gyrates every time she mentions Ninus’ tomb; Kelly brings big musical theater kid energy to her role as the plucky playwright Quince/Moonshine; Whalen plays the role of Snout/Wall “most obscenely”; and Hedman is a “harmless necessary cat” (to quote Merchant of Venice ) as Snug, which is comically unfortunate as she should embrace the role of a roaring, fearful Lion. There are so many mishaps in their “Pyramus and Thisbe”—misplaced swords, bad blockings, forgotten lines, and a tumble down the stairs—that someone must’ve said the Scottish thane’s name before they took the stage.

The induction scene is frameworked by a series of subtle and un-magical transformations back into the real world—through an onstage costume change, Titania and Oberon turn into Hippolyta and Theseus; Bottom’s donkey head is removed; the fairies take the stage in their all too mortal forms as the Rude Mechanicals; and even the charming Puck becomes the bumbling, bookish Philostrate. But the lovers all seem renewed, refreshed, and younger than in the beginning of the play. As the whole ensemble dances to another Fleetwood Mac classic, “Gypsy,” the entire theater is lit up with festooned lights and chandeliers. And that—the entire process of stopping two hours in the real world, entering a spectral, fantastical place, leaving renewed and transformed by others who also went on the same weird, wild journey—is magical, too.

In The Breakfast Club , the question posed—“My God, are we gonna be like our parents?”—elicits shock and denial from the group of rebellious teens. No one wants to grow up, to care more about retirement funding than romance, to become boring and dull and old. Allison (Ally Sheedy) concedes, “It’s unavoidable, it just happens. … When you grow up, your heart dies…” This wonderful and joyous production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream is so lovely, lively, and magical that it disproves those teenage fears.

Running time: Two hours with a 15-minute intermission.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream plays through June 9, 2024, at Everyman Theatre, 315 West Fayette St., Baltimore, MD. Purchase tickets ($29–$75) online or contact the box office by phone at 410-752-2208 (Monday–Friday, 10 a.m.–4 p.m., and Saturday, 12-4 p.m.) or email [email protected] .

Accessibility: Everyman emphasizes their commitment to accessibility for all, including those with economic challenges, with Pay What You Choose prices.

The cast and creative credits are online here (scroll down).

COVID Safety: Masks are encouraged, though not required. Everyman’s complete health and safety guide is here.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream By William Shakespeare Directed by Noah Himmelstein

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T&C's Shakespeare Weekend: A Midsummer Night's Dream AUDITIONS

Town & country players.

T&C's Shakespeare Weekend: A Midsummer Night's Dream Directed, Produced, & Written by Janemarie Cloutier, Sarah LeClair, & William Shakespeare

SHOW DATES August 23 & 24 at 7:30PM August 24 & 25 at 2:00 PM ​ ​AUDITIONS Saturday June 8, 10am-3pm Sunday June 9, 11am-3pm Location: Buckingham Township Building 4613 Hughesian Dr Buckingham, PA 18912 View Map ​ CALLBACKS  (by invitation only)

Town and Country Players seeks actors, ages 18 and up, for the cast of a fully-staged production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, as well as a troupe of improv players to perform before the show. Our Shakespeare Weekend will take place August 23-25, with four performances at our theater.   All actors are welcome to audition; casting will be flexible.  Actors may audition for roles in the play, the improv troupe, or both (actors’ preferences will be considered).   Auditions will be conducted in small groups, to assess chemistry and ability.  Please review the audition packet for more information.   Please review your calendar for conflicts through August 25.  Conflicts must be listed on the audition form.   Rehearsals will begin June 10 are expected to be 3 to 4 times per week, tentatively Sunday/Monday/Wednesday to start, depending on cast conflicts.    All roles are unpaid. This is a non-Equity Production   Town and Country Players  is committed to our mission of diversity, equity, and inclusion. We want to cast shows that reflect our common humanity and create safe, welcoming environments. All roles are open to performers of any race, gender, or identity.

Join us at The Barn for MIRTH, MERRIMENT, & MAGIC Before the show enjoy our wandering troupe of improv players, have something delicious to eat, hurl  Shakespearean insults at someone snap a selfie with Shakespeare, and then enter the stage for a performance of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" We are also looking for performers for our festival: folks who are comfortable with improvising and interacting with the audience, as well as singers to entertain pre-show.  You can be part of the improv troupe OR part of the Midsummer cast OR part of BOTH groups We will ask you for your preference.  We will do some improv games at auditions with those actors who are interested. Characters in the Play*   *Please note, we are open to flexible casting for all roles. We may double some roles and/or add to the ensemble.   The Athenians (awaiting the royal wedding of Theseus and Hippolyta): Theseus, Duke of Athens Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons Philostrate, Assistant to Theseus Egeus, parent to Hermia Hermia, in love with Lysander Lysander, beloved of Hermia Demetrius, in love with Hermia Helena, in love with Demetrius The Mechanicals (amateur actors performing a play for the royal wedding): Quince Bottom Snout Snug Flute Starveling The Fairy Court: Oberon, King of the Fairies Titania, Queen of the Fairies Puck, servant to Oberon Moth, servant to Titania Mustardseed, servant to Titania Cobweb, servant to Titania Peaseblossom, servant to Titania

How To Apply

Fill out  audition form here .   Sign up for an audition time here .   For more information, contact [email protected] .   Huzzah!

Job Category

A Midsummer Night's Dream

Jun 21, 2024 7:00 PM

Schumacher Farm Park, Waunakee 5682 Highway 19 , Waunakee , Wisconsin 53597

May 21, 2024

media release: Join us this summer for a production of a Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream here at the park! The show will be directed by Hannah Nies, who graduated from Waunakee High School in 2017 and went on to study music, acting, directing, and writing at Wellesley College in Massachusetts. She is passionate about bringing this new community theater opportunity to the area. Read a recent article about Hannah and the production here . More information coming soon!

7 pm on 6/21-22 and 2 pm, 6/23, Schumacher Farm Park, Waunakee.

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