BWW catches up with director Kim Weild to chat about bringing Midsummer! to the 2026 Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
Tell us a bit about Midsummer!
MIDSUMMER! is Jeff Whitty's exhilarating modern American verse translation of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. It is fast, playful, physical, and full of music—but it still carries the poetry, complexity, and emotional stakes of Shakespeare's play.
Our production transports the story to Gilded Age western Pennsylvania, where industrial Pittsburgh meets the forests and coal communities of Appalachia. Nine actors play twenty-six roles in ninety minutes, and they never leave the stage. They continually transform—from lovers to laborers to fairies, and sometimes from one social class to another—so the audience gets to witness the theatrical machinery of the story unfolding in front of them. Appalachian folk music and contemporary house music bring its different worlds together, and queer transformative joy sits at its heart.
How are the themes relevant today?
The play asks questions that remain deeply relevant: Who has power? Who gets to determine another person's future? What happens when the identities and expectations we inherit no longer allow us to live authentically?
The Gilded Age was a period of extraordinary innovation and wealth, but also profound inequality. Those tensions feel remarkably close to our own time. Shakespeare's young lovers are attempting to claim authority over their bodies and futures, while the Mechanicals are working people trying to make something beautiful together. In the forest, the structures governing all of them begin to break down. The resulting chaos is very funny, but it also opens the possibility of change. For me, the play's enduring hope lies in the idea that we are not fixed—and neither is the world we have inherited.
Who is involved in the creative team?
This has been an extraordinarily collaborative process involving our actors, designers, creative team, and the faculty and staff of Carnegie Mellon University's School of Drama. Jeff Whitty has been in residence with us, allowing the translation and the production to evolve together as we shaped this particular ninety-minute version of his play.
At the center is an ensemble of nine remarkable student actors who play all twenty-six roles and remain present throughout the performance. The entire company participates in the production's act of transformation: costumes are peeled away, rebuilt, and reconfigured; objects take on new meanings; and the worlds of industrial Pittsburgh, Appalachia, and the forest are created collectively before the audience's eyes.
The creative team includes modern translation and adaptation by Jeff Whitty, Director Kim Weild, Assistant Director Matthew Kereama, Fight Director Randy Kovitz, Choreographer and Intimacy Director, Lucas Fedele, Production Stage Manager Abby Brunner, Stage Manager Reigh Wilson, Dramaturg Mags Holcolmb, Scenic and props designer Zhuang Kang, Costume, hair and makeup designer Bri Johnson, Lighting designer J. Adams, with Sound Design and original music from Rachel Laurence and Technical direction from Emma Lemire.
The cast includes Siahvash Marshall, Jakai-Nyasia, Moyo Ifafore, Eli Strain, Celia Evans, Christian Trimmingham, Logan Yao, Rusty Daniel and Von Nishan Markarian.
What does it mean to these students to come and show their work in Edinburgh?
It is an extraordinary opportunity, particularly because most of these students have only just completed their second year of undergraduate training in Carnegie Mellon University's School of Drama. They are bringing their work into conversation with artists and audiences from around the world at one of the most vibrant theatre festivals anywhere. They are not simply presenting a finished production; they are discovering what happens when the work encounters a new city, a new culture, and audiences who may bring very different associations to Shakespeare and to this distinctly American translation.
There is also something wonderfully meaningful about bringing this production to Scotland. Shakespeare's story crossed the Atlantic, was translated into modern American verse, and has been reimagined through the history and music of western Pennsylvania. Now it is travelling back across the ocean, carrying all those influences with it. For these young artists to participate in that exchange at this point in their training is both a tremendous challenge and an extraordinary gift.
What would you like audiences to take away from it?
First, I hope they have a wonderful time. The play is full of chaos, music, surprise, and joy, and we want audiences to feel welcomed into that experience.
But beneath all the laughter, I hope they leave thinking about transformation—not as becoming someone entirely different, but as discovering and embracing more of who we already are. Shakespeare understood that identity is not fixed and that encountering another person can change us. If audiences leave feeling a little more open to possibility, a little more able to see one another, and reminded of the joy that can come from living more authentically, that would mean a great deal to us.
Midsummer! is at the Edinburgh Fringe at Bijou at Assembly Rooms from 6 – 19 Aug (not 12) at 12:30pm. Ticket information here:https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/midsummer
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