A Midsummer Night’s Dream & The Drowsy Chaperone Conjure Summer Enchantment June 4-14th

Lovers of community theatre are in for a big treat the first two weekends of early June when Center Stage Theatre and The Friction Theatre stage two productions at Midland Center for the Arts full of mischief, music, and summer magic at its finest.

Kicking things off on June 4 & 12 at 7:30 PM and June 6 & 14 at 2:00 PM is a contemporary translation of William Shakespeare’s enduring and enchanting comedy, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which instead of being set within a bucolic British forest in the mid-16^th Century is set within the glittering “Me Decade’ decadence and Bright Lights, Big City atmosphere of mid-1990’s New York City.

Produced by Megan Krause, recently appointed Director of Midland Center’s Center Stage Theatre and co-founder of The Friction Theatre, and Directed by Kaeleigh Casavant, this fresh take on ‘the Bard’s’ illuminating classic follows runaway lovers, amateur actors, and mischievous fairies as they collide at that midsummer solstice  where love blossoms, logic disintegrates, and identity begins to unravel. With 90s music and a world where nothing is quite what it seems, this whimsical comedy radiates and channels that eternal joyful celebration of transformation and the strange spell of love that realigns our destinies.

Running in tandem with this production is The Friction Theatre’s take on The Drowsy Chaperone, which will run on June 5 & 11 and 13-14 at 7:30 PM with a 2:00 PM June 7^th matinee. Winner of five Tony Awards, this exuberant mash-up breaks the wall between actor & audience, serving as a hilarious love letter to the golden age of musicals.

Directed and choreographed by the husband & wife team of  Chris and Meagan Krause, with musical direction by Sherri Angelotti, the audience convenes to witness a lonely theatre fan dropping the needle on his stereo upon his  favorite cast album, only to have the resonance of his memory & emotion suddenly burst to life in his living room - complete with jazz-age romance, tap-dancing gangsters, a tipsy chaperone, and nonstop showbiz antics. Overflowing with charm, wit, and show-stopping numbers, this “musical within a comedy” is pure escapist joy.

As the producer of both productions and choreographer of the other, Meagan received her education from the American Musical & Dramatic Academy in New York City and graduated in 2012. Upon graduation she performed on Broadway, off-Broadway, and at dinner theatres in Orlando before forming The Friction Theatre with her husband upon moving to Midland five years ago. “It’s hard to keep count, but I moved here because my parents ended up moving here,” she confesses.

“I wanted to be closer to home after I had my daughter, who’s 8-years old now, so my husband and I relocated here, and we started our own company. Now that I’m managing director at Center Stage, I wanted to showcase both productions because we’d both been collaborating on them before I took this position at Midland Center.”

With the ‘90s update to Midsummer Night’s Dream, is the poetic Elizabethan coloration of Shakespeare’s dialect still intact?  “In addition to being the Director, Kaeleigh Cassavant also wrote the adaptation of the script, but in terms of the verbiage I don’t believe a lot of the lines have changed per se,” responds Meagan.

“She made some cuts because Shakespeare tends to be pretty long, and she’s moved some things around to make sense for it being staged in that 1990s New York club scene, encompassing the raw drag LGBTQ influences of that time, so it’s a very interesting adaptation.”

Regarding the collaboration with her husband on The Drowsy Chaperone, what are some of the themes they are drawing to bring out from this production?  “This show was very popular in the early 200s,” reflects Meagan. “It’s about a man telling this story in his apartment and he breaks the fourth wall and starts talking to the audience about his favorite show from the Golden Age of musicals in the 1920s”

“He pulls out a record and tells you about this made-up show called the Drowsy Chaperone and suddenly the show comes to life in his apartment,” she continues. “Something he stops the record and the actors freeze while he makes comments and asides about this outdated show that people have forgotten and it’s a very funny comedy.”

With a cast of 15 gifted actors in Midsummer and 20 actors featured in The Drowsy Chaperone, insofar as Meagan is working directly on that production, what does she feel some of the pivotal actors bring to the roles of their characters?

“Bill Anderson is playing our ‘Man in the Chair’ who tells the story of the musical, and while I don’t want to age him, he’s been around since the ‘90s and is a huge figure in regional theatre who has been acting since he was a kid,” she reflects. “He’s worked in the Youth Theatre and here at Center Stage and he’s one of our best directors, has handled lights, worked props, and is a huge advocate for regional theatre in this area. People adore him and its funny and exciting to see him play a role that I think is truly himself, only for our town because he’s so authentic. The role fits him just right for our community.”

“And then we have Laura Brigham as The Drowsy Chaperone, who’s at Creative 360, so we have some very familiar Midland people in the cast that are big influences and haven’t really worked together in a lot of capacities before. We have people from Friction, people from Bay City Players, people from Creative 360, and people from Midland Center all coming together, which is very exciting. It’s been really special for us to use Miodland Center’s space for that type of collaboration

Tickets for both productions can be obtained by clicking by visiting www.midlandcenter.org or phoning 989-6311-8250.