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“The course of true love never did run smooth.”

A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a play about love at its most confusing and ridiculous. Shakespeare draws us into a world where emotions rule over logic, magic alters reality, and young people discover that love is not always what we expect it to be. Though Shakespeare wrote it over 400 years ago, its themes—crushes, jealousy, friendship, identity, and growing up—remain deeply familiar today.

Our goal in this production is to honor Shakespeare’s language while making the story clear, playful, and relatable for a modern audience. To do that, I presented this challenge to our students: to speak heightened language with clarity, to embrace bold character choices, and to trust ensemble storytelling.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a contrast between order and disorder. Athens represents rules, expectations, and control, while the nighttime forest represents freedom, transformation, and mistakes. By morning, the characters return changed, having learned something about themselves and one another, thinking their exploits “but as the fierce vexation of a dream”.

Shakespeare reminds us that theatre itself is magic—one created by collaboration, imagination, and a lot of teamwork. We invite you to laugh with us, and remember that love, like theatre, is often messy, surprising, and wonderfully absurd.

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March is Theatre In Our Schools month, a time when we celebrate and raise awareness of the power of #TheatreInOurSchools to develop well-rounded, empathetic, and thoughtful leaders. It's a time when thousands of students, educators, and supporters join in campaigns that highlight how participation in school theatre programs helps students develop critical skills that will benefit them in their future careers regardless of whether they pursue arts after graduation.

We would love to hear how your school theatre program helped you thrive.  Please drop an email to TheatreAtBishopHartley@gmail.com and we might feature your quote on Instagram during our Theatre in Our Schools campaign.

Thank you for your continued support!