Drama Teachers Directing A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Episode 164: Drama Teachers Directing A Midsummer Night’s Dream Four drama teachers talk about their vision, their experience, their successes and their struggles directing A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The same play with four completely different outcomes. A great peek into how a director interprets a script and how they illuminate the Bard for their students. Show Notes Postcards From Shakespeare Episode Transcript Welcome to TFP – The Theatrefolk Podcast – the place to be for Drama teachers, Drama students, and Theatre educators everywhere. I’m Lindsay Price, resident playwright for Theatrefolk. Hello. Hello! I hope you're well. Thanks for listening! This is Episode 164. You can find any links to this episode in the show notes which are at Theatrefolk.com/episode164. Some of my favorite episodes – they’re all my favorite episodes; I love this podcast! I love hearing from you guys when you come up to us at the Theatrefolk table when we’re at a conference and you tell us you listen to the podcast – you listen to it in your cars. Somebody was cleaning out his office or painting his office and listening to the podcast. That is, like, the best! I’m glad that it’s something that appeals to you guys, that is informative for you guys. I hope that there is something that you guys get out of it. That’s why we’re doing it! We’re doing it for you! This, I think, was a very interesting one to put together and I hope it’s interesting for you, too. What we’ve got here is I really love it when we can get more than one voice involved on whatever topic so that we can hear more than one point of view. Today, we’ve got four. We’ve got four teachers talking about their vision, their experience, their success and struggles with directing not just any play but a Shakespeare play and what they all have experience with is directing A Midsummer Night’s Dream. So, how do we take this play? How do you interpret it? Ad how do you illuminate the bard both for your audience and for your students? Here’s a little hint of what’s coming – John Hughes does a Shakespeare. I know, eh? Pretty good! Let’s get to it! LINDSAY: Okay. I am talking to Marsha Walner. Hello, Marsha! MARSHA: Hello! LINDSAY: Awesome. We’re talking Dream. Just before we got started, you identified that Midsummer Night’s Dream, favorite production, favorite play – good place to start. MARSHA: This is true – very true. LINDSAY: What makes it your favorite play? MARSHA: I think because it’s just so fun. I mean, that’s kind of the easy answer but it’s silly and fun and magical and exciting and it’s just silly and I love that. And then, of course, there’s the deeper meanings that you can extrapolate when you really dig deep into it and I love doing that in terms of working with older actors. This particular production was a group of K through 12 students so I had everything from little tinies that just wanted to be silly up through high school actors who really wanted to get serious. This play really provided that. LINDSAY: What a wide range of students to work with. MARSHA: Yes. LINDSAY: Your sanity was kept? MARSHA: It was! And that all came from a very meticulously created rehearsal schedule. LINDSAY: Ah, perfect, perfect. Let’s step back and let’s look at your vision. MARSHA: Sure. LINDSAY: When you’re looking at this play, you love the play,