Portland Center Stage presents A Midsummer Night’s Dream
L-R: Nicole Marie Green, Andrés Alcalá, Lauren Bloom Hanover, and Treasure Lunan in "A Midsummer Night's Dream": Photo by Shawnte Sims/ courtesy of Portland Center Stage
Portland Center Stage presents the final play of their 2022-23 season by one of the world’s most renowned playwrights: directed by Artistic Director Marissa Wolf, William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream opened on June 9 and runs through July 2 on the mainstage. When four young lovers escape their oppressive society and seek refuge in the fairies’ woods on a midsummer night, mayhem ensues! Tickets are on sale now, including sliding scale tickets for BIPOC affinity night, a.k.a. The People’s Party, on Friday, June 30, at 7:30 p.m. (The People's Party: BIPOC Affinity Night)
When Hermia refuses to let oppressive Athenian law keep her from happiness, she and her true love Lysander rush off to elope. Helena, hoping to catch the attention of Hermia’s discarded prospect, tells Demetrius about Hermia’s plan, and all four lovers escape to the enchanted woods. There, they cross paths with a bumbling band of theater makers, fiendish fairies with a penchant for magic revenge spells, and several mistaken love matches. Will the games at hand offer an escape from their repressed existence, or will desire and a youthful vision for the future win, allowing their wildest dreams to become permanent?
"Midsummer feels so brightly alive to me right now, bringing both a wellspring of deep love and joy that courses through the play, as well as a rich social resonance,” offers Artistic Director Marissa Wolf. “We journey from the oppressive society of Athens, which seeks to legislate over people's lives and bodies, to the forest, where dreaming, desire, and mayhem abound. With this incredible team of actors and designers, I'm excited to invite audiences into a space of rocking humor, tenderness, and pleasure!"
Marissa is joined in her pursuit of merriment by some of Portland’s best and brightest creatives, including Peter Ksander, designing the spellbound forest locale, Sarita Fellows creating the costumes, Carl Faber on lighting design, and Luke Norby & Five OHM building the soundscape for the play. On stage, PCS favorites return: Andrés Alcalá, Lauren Bloom-Hanover, Nicole Marie Green, Tyler Andrew Jones, Jennifer Lanier, Treasure Lunan, Andy Perkins, Jesse Weil, and Ken Yoshikawa.
As The New York Times states, “There is, of course, no such thing as a foolproof play, but A Midsummer Night's Dream comes about as close as anything written in the last 400 years.”