The Chekhov Collective Presents A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM

The Chekhov Collective (I Take Your Hand in Mine, The Cherry Orchard, The Seagull) is proud to present a mid-winter production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, Shakespeare's most magical and inventive play that explores love in all its complications and contradictions.

On a midsummer's night, young lovers and workmen plunge into a forest where spirits abound. Vows melt, bodies transform, seasons alter, and the moon stills ... it is a world turned upside down where nothing is what it seems.

Framed in a feminine perspective, the women in this Dream hold each other up, offer friendship and acceptance, and a sense of hope that in the end, all will be right. "We trust our theatrical "tricks" will have "strong imagination" and perhaps bring into the light some "things unknown." Richard Sheridan Willis, Director

Eschewing the traditional large-scale outdoor productions, this version of A Midsummer Night's Dream comes inside so the musicality of Shakespeare's
language, including all the dark edges and hidden corners of his verse and prose, can be fully experienced in the intimate setting of The Citadel.

A Midsummer Night's Dream cast includes Paul Amos as Oberon/Theseus (LAMDA, RSC and National Theatre UK, two seasons at Stratford, recurring roles on Lost Girl and Murdoch Mysteries, and Jacob Frye in the acclaimed video game Assassins Creed Syndicate); Rena Polley as Titania/Hippolyta (Founding member of The Chekhov Collective appearing in all of their shows to date, plus recent television appearances on Suits, Designated Survivor, Saving Hope, and Murdoch Mysteries); and Elizabeth Saunders as Puck/Egeus (four seasons at Shaw Festival, plus theatre credits Glengarry Glen Ross, The Vibrator Play, 4:48 Psychosis, The Stone Angel, Transit of Venus, Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet), and Dinner With Friends).

The ensemble also includes Christina Fox as Helena/Quince (LAMDA and NTS trained, she has appeared as Irina in Three Sisters for Wolf Manor Theatre, Shawna in The Dumb War for Newborn Theatre and Guildenstern in Hamlet for NTS); Natasha Greenblatt as Hermia/Snug (currently on stage with Nightwood Theatre's Calpurnia, Get Yourself Home Skyler James for Roseneath Theatre-Dora Award, The Railway Children for Mirvish Productions, and The Importance of Being Earnest for the NAC); Michael Man as Demetrius/Starveling (King Lear, Twelfth Night, Titus Andronicus, and As You Like It for Canadian Stage's Dream in High Park, and Julius Caesar and Much Ado About Nothing for the St. Lawrence Shakespeare Festival); Jesse Nerenberg as Lysander/Flute (Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, and Much Ado About Nothing for the St. Lawrence Shakespeare Festival, and Twelfth Night, Hamlet, Love's Labour's Lost and Macbeth for Shakespeare Bash'd); and Zachary Counsil as Bottom (Prom Queen - The Musical at the Segal Centre, The Servant of Two Masters and The Game of Love and Chance for Odyssey Theatre, and Ordinary Days at the Great Canadian Theatre Company).

If we shadows have offended, think but this, and all is mended, that you have but slumbered here while these visions did appear. And this weak and idle theme, no more yielding but a dream...

Tickets are $25 - $40 and can be purchased at www.brownpapertickets.com

For more information visit TheChekhovCollective.com

Photo Credit: Rena Polley

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