A note from our Director, Mr. Colin Dabkowski:
There comes a time in the life of every teenager—as the pressures of life become almost too much to bear—when it seems like an excellent idea to pack up and run away to the woods.
And why shouldn’t it? It’s scary out there, yes, but it’s also full of possibilities. There are no rules, no bedtimes, no lecturing parents or teachers. But there is danger, and magic, and something inarticulable and strange that calls to us from deep in the forest. As a teenager, I heard that whispered call of escape and it still echoes faintly in my ears. I know my students hear it too, and at its heart that is what this play is about: The adolescent urge to shrug off the strictures of daily life and seek new friends and stranger companies.
I was inspired to select this play by some of my wild-spirited students, who daily remind me of the very forest-dwelling sprites, tricksters, and spirits of no common rate who inhabit this play. It runs only 90 minutes with no intermission, the better to engage fully with Shakespeare’s intoxicating mixture of absurd comedy and florid poetry.
I have never been prouder of a cast and crew than I am of these hard-working students, who dove deep into the difficult language of Shakespeare and pulled up fresh meaning from a text they barely understood on the night of our readthrough. What they have created, I think, is something no other cast could have conjured.
This production could not have happened without an army of people. Roger Paolini shared his copy of the script with me and gave me advice along the way. Shelley Stoffel and Amy Frobel performed hitherto unimagined feats of costume design to produce the jaw-droppingly beautiful scenography that is the hallmark of this production. Ajax Perry’s help on the set, both in its design and construction, was indispensable, as was Lillian Kochmanski’s help with sewing, prop design, bookkeeping and a long list of other tasks she executed with aplomb. Faith Moch’s makeup artistry made our fairies look especially magical, and we are grateful for her time and effort.
Our custodial staff and buildings and grounds staff bent over backwards to help us with this show, as did Mr. William Larrabee, who lent us his hallway to store costumes, props and other materials. And a special thanks to guest directors Chris Kelly and Paige Rzepka for lending their sophisticated sensibilities to the show. As ever, I am grateful to our technical director Christopher Clark for giving this show a professional sheen and to our tech and stage crew students, who have quickly proven themselves as creative forces to contend with.
Thank you for being here tonight to live for a moment with us in this shared dream.
Sincerely,
Colin Dabkowski
Director
