Flagstaff Symphony Orchestra and Flagstaff Shakespeare Festival present, in collaboration with NAU Music and Dance Academy and NAU Vox Astra...
A Midsummer Night's Dream
A Midsummer Night’s Dream William Shakespeare/Felix Mendelssohn
Summary: Four Athenians run away to the forest only to have Puck, the fairy, make both of the boys fall in love with the same girl. The four run through the forest pursuing each other while Puck helps his master play a trick on the fairy queen. In the end, Puck reverses the magic, and the two couples reconcile and marry.
PROGRAM
Overture (orchestra and ballet, about 12 minutes)
Act I
As Duke Theseus prepares for his marriage to Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons, he is interrupted by a courtier, Egeus. Egeus asks for the Duke to intervene in a dispute. His daughter, Hermia, will not agree to marry Demetrius (whom Egeus has chosen for her) because she loves a gentleman named Lysander. The Duke asks Hermia to be obedient to her father. He offers her one of two options: she must either die or accept a celibate life as a nun in Diana's temple.
Naturally upset with the offer, Lysander and Hermia plan to elope and share their secret with Helena, Hermia's friend. Helena is desperately in love with Demetrius, who seems to have abandoned her in favour of Hermia. At night, Lysander and Hermia escape from Athens; but they soon lose their way in the woods. After Helena tells him of their intention to defy the law, Demetrius decides to follow the lovers into the woods. In turn, Helena follows Demetrius in the hope that he will give up on Hermia and choose her instead.
Meanwhile, a group of working men are preparing a play of the tragic love-story of Pyramus and Thisbe to present before the Duke Theseus on his wedding day. Nick Bottom, the weaver, is to play the lover Pyramus, while Flute, the bellows-mender, begrudgingly agrees to play Thisbe.
Act II
Nearby, Oberon - King of the Fairies—has recently quarrelled with his queen, Titania. She acquired a magical child from one of her waiting women, and now refuses to hand him over to Oberon to use as a page. Oberon begins to plot a way to get revenge on Titania for her disobedience. He sends his fairy servant, Puck, to fetch a purple flower with juice that makes people fall in love with the next creature they see.
Afterwards, Oberon overhears Helena and Demetrius arguing in the forest. Oberon hears Demetrius mistreat Helena and tells Puck to anoint 'the Athenian', so Demetrius will fall in love with the first person that he sees. Puck mistakes the Athenian and puts the flower juice on the eyes of the sleeping Lysander. When he is woken by Helena, he immediately falls in love with her and rejects Hermia. When Demetrius rests, Oberon puts magic juice on his eyes, which makes him fall in love with Helena as well.
Act III
The workers' rehearsals in the wood are overheard by Puck, who plays a trick on them by giving Bottom an ass's head. After frightening the others away, Bottom is lured towards the sleeping Titania whom Oberon has anointed with Puck's magic flower juice. On waking, the fairy queen falls in love with the ass and entertains him with her fairies.
Meanwhile, Demetrius and Lysander, still under the spell of the flower juice, pursue Helena. Hermia is jealous and confused about the lack of attention paid to her. Oberon and Puck watch the chaos, and Oberon commands Puck to put it right again. The lovers' arguments have tired them all out as they have chased one another through the woods. Puck eventually distracts the two men from their pursuit of Helena by impersonating their voices, and they get lost in the woods. The four lovers fall asleep, exhausted. Puck places restorative juice on Lysander's eyes.
INTERMISSION, 15 minutes
Act IV
After an afternoon of being pampered by Titania's fairies, Bottom falls asleep beside her. Oberon restores Titania's sight and wakes her (thank goodness). After expressing her dismay at the sight of Bottom, she reconciles with Oberon, and she ends up giving him the little Indian prince for his page. Bottom's ass head is removed, and he returns to the city to rejoin his friends as they prepare to perform their play. The lovers are woken by Theseus and Hippolyta's hunting party. Lysander sees Hermia and falls in love with her once again.
Act V
Happily reunited (Lysander with Hermia and Demetrius with Helena), they agree to share the Duke's wedding day. The play of 'Pyramus and Thisbe' is presented before the wedding guests. As the three couples retire to bed, Puck and the fairies return to bless the palace and its people.
Justus Burkitt, Theseus/Oberon
Justus Burkitt has been performing Shakespeare across Arizona for over 20 years, most recently with Laark Productions in A Midsummer Night’s Dream as Oberon (a role he is happy to be reprising for you now!) and with Flagstaff Shakespeare Festival in their 2023 production of Twelfth Night as Orsino. His other FlagShakes credits include Iago in Othello and Dromio of Syracuse in A Comedy of Errors. He has also appeared in Laark Productions shows as Don Pedro in Much Ado About Nothing, Laertes in Hamlet and Caliban in The Tempest. He has appeared with Southwest Shakespeare Festival as Macduff in Macbeth. Justus owes much of his happiness in life to his wife, Bree, and their two dogs (Jill and Sonora) and cat (Indigo).
Paige Latendresse, Puck / Egeus / Philostrate
Paige Latendresse has been performing in Arizona since 2017. Her most recent credits include the Nurse in FlagShakes summer production of Romeo and Juliet and Angelo in Comedy of Errors. Paige currently manages two cafes in Uptown Sedona and spends her free time at home with her four dogs and wonderful partner Nathan. She is very excited to be a part of such a unique performance with FlagShakes and FSO.
Becki Zaritsky, Titania / Hyppolyta
Becki Zaritsky is thrilled to be returning to A Midsummer Night’s Dream for her third time! Select credits: Miss Prism in The Importance of Being Earnest, Quince in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Halina in Indecent, and Rosalind in As You Like It (Flagstaff Shakespeare Festival); Callie in Consequences (24-hr Theatre Project with The Phoenix Theatre Company), Harriet in The Bremen Town Musicians (The REV on Tour); understudy Tatiana Racón in The Comedy of Tenors (Walnut Street Theatre); Assistant Stage Manager for West Side Story (International Tour). Becki is also part of the Flagstaff improv team Chomsky School of Business, and is an aerialist at Momentum Aerial. www.BeckiZaritsky.com @BeckZarit #BeckSideStory
Hannah Fontes, Helena / Snug / Fairy / Peaseblossom
Hannah Fontes is an actor, aerialist, and arts administrator based in Flagstaff, where she is the Marketing Director at the Flagstaff Shakespeare Festival. Besides marketing, she is the producer and a co-host on their podcast Untamed Shrews, a podcast about being a woman in theater. Her favorite acting credits include Romeo and Juliet (Juliet), Othello (Desdemona), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Helena), Shakespeare in Love (Nurse), meg jo beth amy & louisa (Meg/Anna), Sense and Sensibility (Lucy/ Fanny), The Tempest (Caliban), and Merry Wives of Windsor (Mistress Quickly). She also wrote a one woman show titled I Am Playing Me that has been touring around the southwest and beyond for the past year. Hannah has also worked with Sweet Tea Shakespeare, Island Shakespeare Festival, Merry-Go-Round Playhouse (The Rev), Utah Shakespeare Festival, Arizona Theatre Company, Southwest Shakespeare Company, Bridge Initiative, Tier5 Theatre Company, Neil Simon Festival, and Canyon Moon Theatre Company. Hannah holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Musical Theatre from Southern Utah University. When Hannah isn’t doing theatre, you can find her doing aerial arts, baking, thrifting, volunteering at her church, and petting dogs.
David Scandura, Demetrius / Bottom
David Scandura has called Flagstaff home for nearly 17 years. He graduated from Northern Arizona University in 2015 with a bachelor’s degree in English Secondary Education and a minor in Cinema Studies. A lifelong writer and performer, David is a former guest columnist with Flag Live! and a spoken word poet across Northern Arizona. He wrote and starred in the television pilot The Masterpiece (Malcolm West) with Alyra Productions. On stage, David has performed in Macbeth (Donalbain) with NAU. His original play Visiting Hours was featured in a dramatized reading as part of NAU’s New Works Festival. His most recent performance with Flagstaff Shakespeare Festival was Two Noble Kinsmen. In his spare time, David is a diehard heavy metal fan, a full-time cat dad, and discusses movies every week on The Greatest Movie Ever Made Podcast along with fellow FlagShakes member Justus Burkitt.
Marcus Winn, Lysander / Flute / Cobweb / Mustardseed
Marcus Winn is super privileged to be portraying Lysander. Recent credits include Romeo in Romeo and Juliet and Arcite in Two Noble Kinsmen. He would like to thank God, his mom and brother, family and friends, and his teacher and mentor Don K. Williams.
Audrey Young, Hermia /Quince/ Moth
This is Audrey Young’s seventh season with FlagShakes with her most recent productions including Two Noble Kinsmen (Emilia), Twelfth Night (Feste), Othello (Emilia), and the Viola Award winning Crumbs from the Table of Joy (Gerte Schulte). Additional 2022-2023 credits include Cyrano de Bergerac (Roxane) with Red Earth Theatre Co., Almost, Maine (Sandrine, Gayle, Rhonda), Eurydice (Little Stone/Eurydice US), and The Great Gatsby (Daisy Buchanen) with Emerson Theater Collaborative. In 2020, Audrey was the recipient of the Viola Award for Emerging Artist. www.officialaudreyyoung.com
Christine Schmidle, Director
Christine Schmidle is a freelance director and text coach and worked on over 60 productions at Shakespeare’s Globe in London. She received her MFA at Mary Baldwin College. Christine’s working experience includes the American Shakespeare Center, the Neuss Shakespeare Festival (Germany), the Prague Shakespeare Festival, and of course Flagstaff Shakespeare Festival. She has been published in the Shakespeare Bulletin and Shakespeare Quarterly and translated “Der Bestrafte Brudermord” (a German Renaissance adaptation of Shakespeare’s Hamlet) into English for Hidden Room’s puppet show, which has been touring worldwide. Follow her work at www.ActShakespeare.com.
Shari Snodgrass, Stage Manager
Shari Snodgrass has been running around backstage with various theatre companies in Washington and Arizona for 20 plus years. Some of her favorite productions she’s participated in include: Two Noble Kinsmen (Flagstaff Shakespeare Festival) Avenue Q (Theatrikos Theatre Company), Sweeney Todd (Theatrikids) Rent (Flagstaff Musical Theatre), Into the Woods (Leavenworth Summer Theatre), Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (LST), Phantom of the Opera (Wenatchee District Musical), and Chicago (Music Theater of Wenatchee). Many thanks to a great cast and crew and much love to my family, Jenny, Victor, Dylan, and Elaina; thanks for sharing Auntie and letting her play with her friends.
Costume Designer, Karla Burkitt
Text Director, Christine Schmidle
