"A Midsummer Night's Dream" opens Friday, April 14

The McLean Community Players will present William Shakespeare’s comedy, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, opening Friday, April 14, 2017, at Vinson Hall’s Community Building Ballroom, 1735 Kirby Road, McLean, VA 22101. A Midsummer Night’s Dream contains four interconnecting plots surrounding the marriage of Theseus, the Duke of Athens, and Hippolyta, the Queen of the Amazons. It opens Friday, April 14, 2017, and runs weekends through Sunday, April 30. There will be no matinee performance on April 16. Rosemary Hartman leads an award-winning cast and crew in this production, MCP’s first at its temporary venue at Vinson Hall while the McLean Community Center is closed for renovation.

As part of the wedding celebration for Theseus and Hippolyta, Bottom, the weaver, and his friends, the mechanicals, hope to stage a play they have been rehearsing in the forest. Oberon, king of the fairies, and Titania, his queen are also in the forest because Titania plans to attend the wedding. In the meantime, four young lovers involved in a romantic entanglement also end up in the forest. Chaos ensues after Puck, Oberon’s servant, uses a magic love potion on the lovers and casts a spell on Bottom to give him the head of a donkey. Eventually, the lovers are paired off—each woman with the man she loves—the spell is lifted from Bottom, and everyone returns to Athens. In Athens, the two young couples join the royal couple in the wedding ceremony, and the mechanicals perform their play.

Director Rosemary Hartman says, “A Midsummer Night's Dream is my favorite Shakespeare comedy. I decided to direct it because I love the storyline, the characters, and the audience appeal. No play was ever named more appropriately; it is a "dream,"—a dream composed of elves, mistaken identities, and wild fantasies. This delightful tale has the many human elements of love, revenge, humor, and mystery as well as the mystical magic and enchantment of "other-worldly" creatures such as the scheming Oberon, Titania's consort and King of the Fairies, beautiful Titania, Queen of the Fairies, who is furious with Oberon for upsetting the balance of nature over a squabble they are having, and my two favorite characters, Bottom, the garrulous would-be actor, and the mischievous Puck, who carries out Oberon's every wish. Last but not least, the Fairies who will delight with some beautiful dancing. Prepare to be enchanted!

A Midsummer Night’s Dream opens Friday, April 14, 2017, and runs weekends through April 30. Performances are Fridays and Saturdays at 8:00 p.m., with Sunday matinees on April 23 and 30 at 2:00 p.m. in Vinson Hall’s Community Building Ballroom, 1735 Kirby Road, McLean, VA 22101.Tickets are $18-$20, and are available at www.McLean Players.org or through Brown Paper Tickets at 1-800-838-3006. Tickets will also be available at the door.