The Seeing Place (TSP) brings A Midsummer Night’s Dream to a national audience with a twist that brings the story into the 21st Century in an incredibly accessible, understandable way.
Our last online reading, Amiri Baraka’s Dutchman, was so good The Seeing Place (TSP) made it to the top of the New York Times Art section. TSP’is bringing that same intensity and a little more magic to their upcoming virtual production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
The couple in Athens just can’t catch a break, have you noticed that? Everyone is trying to tell them how to be and who to love: the government, their parents, themselves, crazy woodland fairies. It’s a lot like the society we live in today where lovers, especially in the LGBTQIA+ community, just can’t do their own thing without everyone trying getting up in their business.
The Seeing Place (TSP)’s cast and production team, with a majority representing the LGBTQIA+ community (featuring Hermia and Lysander as a lesbian couple and a herd of non-binary fairies), will dive deep into this messy web of tyranny and prejudice to expose it for how silly it really is.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream stars Laura Clare Browne, Erin Cronican, Ellinor DiLorenzo, William Ketter, Dan Mack, Jon L Peacock, Brandon Walker, and Weronika Helena Wozniak. This fluid production is directed by TSP’s Co-Artistic Directors and NYIT Award Nominees Brandon Walker and Erin Cronican. The event is stage-managed by Shannon K. Formas, with original music by Randi Driscoll (award-winning singer, and songwriter, and actress) whose original music is a blend of piano-driven singer/songwriter music with elements of pop, country, and jazz.
MIDSUMMER will be streamed live via Zoom
August 29, 2020 (7pm EDT) and August 30, 2020 (3pm EDT)
TICKETS – $10 / $25 / $50
www.TheSeeingPlace.com
A Zoom link will be sent upon sign-up
These readings are being presented as a benefit for Ali Forney Center, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to protecting LGBTQ youths from the harms of homelessness and empowering them with the tools needed to live independently. Proceeds from tickets (starting at $10) will be donated directly to AFC.
About The Play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream
This story brought to life by The Seeing Place (TSP) has been modernized to involve multiple LGTBQIA+ storylines.
Lysander loves Hermia, and Hermia loves Lysander. Helena loves Demetrius; Demetrius used to love Helena but now loves Hermia. Egeus, Hermia’s father, prefers Demetrius as a suitor (Lysander is a woman and same-sex relationships are forbidden) and enlists the aid of Theseus, the Duke of Athens, to enforce his wishes upon his daughter. According to Athenian law, Hermia is given four days to choose between Demetrius, life in a nunnery, or a death sentence. Hermia, ever defiant, chooses to escape with Lysander into the surrounding forest.
Complications arise in the forest. Oberon and Titania, King and Queen of Fairies, are locked in a dispute over a boy whom Titania has adopted. The non-binary Oberon instructs his servant, the non-binary Puck, to bring him magic love drops, which Oberon will sprinkle on the Queen’s eyelids as she sleeps, whereupon Titania will fall in love with the first creature she sees upon awakening. Meanwhile, Helena and Demetrius have also fled into the woods after Lysander and Hermia. Oberon, overhearing Demetrius‘s denouncement of Helena, takes pity upon her and tells Puck to place the magic drops upon the eyelids of Demetrius as well, so that Demetrius may fall in love with Helena. Puck, however, makes the mistake of putting the drops on the eyelids of Lysander instead. Helena stumbles over Lysander in the forest, and the spell is cast; Lysander now desires Helena and renounces a stunned Hermia.
In the midst of this chaos, a group of craftsmen is rehearsing for a production of Pyramus and Thisbe, to be played for the Duke at his wedding. Puck impishly casts a spell on Bottom to give him the head of a donkey. Bottom, as luck would have it, is the first thing Titania sees when she awakens; hence, Bottom ends up being lavishly kept by the Queen. Oberon enjoys this sport but is less amused when it becomes apparent that Puck has botched up the attempt to unite Demetrius and Helena. Oberon himself anoints Demetrius with the love potion and ensures that Helena is the first person he sees; however, Helena understandably feels that she is now being mocked by both Demetrius and Lysander (who is still magically enamored of her).
Finally, Oberon decides that all good sports must come to an end. He puts the four lovers to sleep and gives Lysander the antidote for the love potion so that she will love Hermia again. Next, Oberon gives Titania the antidote, and the King and Queen reconcile. Theseus and Hippolyta then discover Lysander, Hermia, Helena, and Demetrius asleep in the forest. All return to Athens to make sense of what they think is a strange dream. Likewise, Bottom returns to his players, and he and the male Flute perform the lovers’ story, Pyramus and Thisbe at the wedding feast (which has since become a wedding of three couples). As everyone retires, fairies perform their blessings and Puck delivers a tender epilogue.
About THE SEEING PLACE (TSP)
Our name The Seeing Place is the literal translation of the Greek word for theater (theatron): “. . . the place where we go to see ourselves.” The Seeing Place is an actor-driven, social justice theater company dedicated to exploring the intersection between the actor’s voice and the playwright’s words, by reinterpreting masterful works live and in the moment to make them relevant, visceral, truthful, and accessible to a modern audience.
With an emphasis on the organic, edgy American style of acting developed by the Group Theatre, TSP allows audiences to experience current plays and classics with a deeper understanding of how they relate to the struggles we face today. With that, tickets are as low as $10 as a part of TSP’s Affordable Theater Initiative, making theater accessible for all.
The Seeing Place celebrates its 10th Anniversary with a dedication to stories about the Body Politic. The rest of its 2020-2021 season includes “Eugene Ionesco’s” EXIT THE KING (online–October 2020), other readings TBA, and live presentations of “Margaret Edson’s” Pulitzer Prize winner, WIT, and “Anna Ziegler’s” BOY (all being presented in 2021.)
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