My road to A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Posted by kris on Thursday, August 18, 2011 at 10:44 am

Shakespeare scared the living daylights out of me. As a grown woman who has never taken up Shakespeare in school, finding out that we’re re-staging Shakespeare’s a Midsummer Night’s Dream didn’t excite me as much as our previous productions since my knowledge of this iconic writing legacy was limited to “Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo”. Literally, that was all I knew.

So when I looked up the lines that the fairy Cobweb (the part assigned to me) had to deliver, I freaked out. It was a lot. It was two pages long. Of course that is relatively short compared to most of the characters’ lines but daunting enough for a Shakespeare virgin like me.

Well, that was me a few months ago. Now, I, though still a bit intimidated, can already appreciate the beauty in Shakespeare’s work. In this day and age when everyone can express their innermost feelings in 140 characters, it was a welcome change to read this kind of writing using such beautiful words, even being witty and charming at times.  Who knew?

The rehearsal process Michael put us through definitely helped me and the other cast members understand the words, the feeling, the objective of each character. And because the words are very important, he had us go through weeks of reading. Just us cast members sitting down, with our scripts, as we read through our lines, spending hours and hours dissecting them one by one.

L-R: Zig, Dave (partly hidden), Mikey, Ale, Paolo

Clockwise from upper left: Celine, Kathy, Lara, Micko, Anna (partly hidden)

After weeks of doing readings, we were ready to block. As I mentioned earlier, this is already a re-staging of AMND. The company has done this before. But because we have a new set of actors, and a different interpretation from the last time it was staged, Michael more or less had to start from the very beginning.

Michael giving directions to Zig and Kathy who play Demetrius and Hermia

Michael going as far as demonstrating the blocking.

To show Kathy (Helena) how it's done.

And while Michael blocks the scene, us actors are expected to sit quietly on the sides.

the company waiting for their scene (photo taken by Dave)

Which gave us an opportunity to rest for a bit before going on.

In fairness to Mikey, we have been rehearsing for four hours when this was taken.

Or get some work done.

Joonee probably working on our upcoming show

I, on the other hand, took the opportunity to take more “behind-the-scenes” photos for this blog post!

Demetrius (Zig) wooing Helena (Kathy) in one scene.

In this scene Demetrius (Zig) falls alseep after a long day of chasing after Lysander (Daryl).

my ballet shoes!

BUT, when it’s time to do their thing, it’s performance level all the way!

Hermia (Lara) preventing Lysander (Daryl) and Demetrius (Zig) from fighting

The Prologue by the Rude Mechanicals

Pyramus (Mikey) and Thisbee (Paolo).

a chink!!

To give you a glimpse of our rehearsal process, watch here!

Our show is about 3 weeks away and we still have hours and hours of rehearsals left. I have to admit, it gets tiring at times and requires A LOT of patience and dedication. But trust me, IT IS ALL WORTH IT. In theater we learn discipline, time management, dedication, teamwork, mutual respect, and a lot of other life skills that cannot be learned anywhere else. No one else gets an opportunity as rare and rich as this. And for that, I am grateful.