A Midsummer Night's Dream

WRITTEN BY: William Shakespeare
TO HAVE BEEN PERFORMED AT: ?
TO HAVE BEEN PERFORMED ON: July 7-8 and 14-15
DIRECTOR: Joel Wilbur and Cara Furiosi-Clarke
SPONSORED BY: Lake Country Players
CAST:
* THESEUS- ?
* HIPPOLYTA- Felisha Noble
* EGEUS- Jane Daum
* HERMIA- Amy Lange
* LYSANDER- ???
* DEMETRIUS- ???
* HELENA- Sara Caldwell
* QUINCE- Mike Carson
* BOTTOM- David A. Scott
* FLUTE- ???
* PUCK- Joel Wilbur
* FAIRY- ???
* OBERON- Tom Blake
* TITANIA- ???
* SNOUT- ???
* PEASEBLOSSOM- ???
* COBWEB- ???
* MOTH- ???
* MUSTARDSEED- ???

PLOT: "A Midsummer Night's Dream is a romantic comedy by William Shakespeare written sometime in the late-1500s. It portrays the adventures of four young Athenian lovers and a group of amateur actors in a moonlit forest, and their interactions with the fairies who inhabit it and Duke of the Athenians." (quoted from Wikipedia)

HISTORY: Ten years prior to this show, I tried out for a Corning Community College production of William Shakespeare's "As You Like It". In the middle of my audition, director Clare Reidy (who directed me in minor roles during two previous CCC Shakespeare shows) told me that I should try for Elmira Little Theater's "Noises Off" production. Her reason: Slapstick comedy was more my "kind of thing". From that point, I felt soundly shunned from Shakespeare, that his works were too upper-level for me to perform, and that my prior efforts to enjoy and understand his work were all for nothing.
Ten years later, Joel Wilbur, who'd directed me months earlier in "Beauty and the Beast", expressed his desire to do an outdoor Shakespeare show during the coming summer. Since "Beast" had finally proven (to me and others) that I could do a musical, it was a good time for me to attempt the same with Shakespeare. Shortly after my April audition, I was informed that I was definitely in the show, but that who I'd be playing had yet to be decided. In the end, I was cast as self-obsessed actor Bottom.
Rehearsals started during the last few weeks of "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde", which featured many of the people that had been cast in "Midsummer". That alone wasn't as much a conflict as other cast members not coming to rehearsals, and the fact that not enough people had auditioned to fill all the roles. In the middle of May, Joel and Cara announced the cancellation of their production. "A Midsummer Night's Dream" was not to be, but options were left open for the most committed of its cast members to do a smaller-scale production that summer.
The alternate production was to feature two-person one-act plays, for which he wanted my wife Cindy and I to play Mae West and Don Ameche in the "Adam & Eve" sketch that I'd done with Judy Mordue in "The Golden Age of Radio" earlier that year. More interestingly, another of the planned one-acts was "Graceland", for which Joel would have me reprising my Radio DJ role from the 1996 and 1997 CCC productions. However, due to scheduling issues and/or cold feet on behalf of some participants, this collection of one-acts was eventually called off as well. With that news, it appeared that my history with Shakespeare and CCC had yet to come full circle.