Great summer for A Midsummer Night’s Dream with the Lethbridge Shakespeare Performance Society

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The Lethbridge Shakespeare Performance Society revisits A  MIdSummer Night’s Dream this summer for their tenth anniversary.

 Their season opens this weekend with a sold out performance at the Nikka Yuko Japanese Gardens, Friday, July 9 and a performance at Casa, July 10

 Andrew Legg  directed the local theatre group’s inaugural performance of A MidSummer Night’s Dream 10 years ago and is back  to direct  the play again this year.

 

Titania (Megan Fennell) and Oberon (Cole Fetting) are ready for A MidSummer Night’s Dream. Photo By Richard Amery

“The great thing about it is it’s the perfect play. It‘s Shakespeare’s best comedy and I would say it’s Shakespeare’s best play,” Legg said.

 

“So whatever happens the words are always going to be great,” he said, noting putting on  the first play came with it’s own set of challenges as did putting on this one coming out of a pandemic.

 

“When we did it in 2012, there were a lot of what ifs like what if a grant doesn’t come through and what if there isn’t an audience. For this one, there were what ifs like  ‘what if we can’t rehearse’ or ‘what if we have to rehearse over Zoom ’like we had to and ‘what if we don’t have an audience.’ There were a lot of X factors in both of them,” he said, adding luckily restrictions were lifted in time to have full cast rehearsals in the Kinsman Park and book shows at different locations in the city.

 

“It’s been a testament to how well the cast and crew have worked together,” he continued, adding working over  Zoom meant he could work with the cast on character  development and motivations.

“The first Zoom rehearsals weren’t very good, but after  restrictions were lifted we could work together in rehearsals,” he said adding he had to keep the cast numbers down due to Covid and had to double cast a few parts as a result.

 

 He estimated three quarters of the 15 member cast are new faces, though there are several very familiar faces.

 

Cole Fetting, who has been in  six Lethbridge Shakespeare performance Society  productions including last year’s reader’s theatre version of Merry Wives of Windsor, Macbeth, The Tempest, A Comedy of Errors and several others, 

 This year he returns as Oberon, king of the Fairies.

“It‘s been quite an experience,” said Fetting, who graduates from the U of Lethbridge drama program this year.

“ We got to do a lot of character development work. We had to rehearse over Zoom, which was hard to translate into blocking on stage when we could meet. But it’s come together really well,” he said.

“Audiences are going to love it,” he promised, noting he has enjoyed playing Oberon.

“Oberon is a very jealous husband. He decides to play a trick on his wife so he asks Puck to get a flower and that leads to  hilarity and miscommunication and  an excellent farce,” he said.

 

 Megan Fennell, who made her Lethbridge Shakespeare Performance Society debut in Macbeth as one of the witches, is excited to be part of a MidSummer Night’s dream.

“I gave Merry Wives of Windsor  a miss  because of Covid last year, but s soon as I found they were doing a MidSummer Night’s dream, I wasn’t going to miss it. It’s my favourite Shakespeare play. It was the first play I read in school,” she said, adding she is excited to play Oberon”s wife Titiana.

“I actually auditioned to play Puck, but was delighted to get cast as Titiana,” she said.

“She’s fierce. She’s a force of nature,” she said adding she enjoys the contrast of Titiana. The flower Oberon sent Puck to fetch makes the subject fall in love with the next creature human or animal he or she sees. Oberon’s trick is to get Titiana to fall in love with the next animal she sees, which ends up being a community theatre actor named Bottom, who is turned into a donkey.

“So I get to fight with Cole (Oberon) then become smitten with Trevor (Loman, who plays Bottom).”

 

 Chris Kyle Peterson is another familiar face with the Lethbridge Shakespeare Performance Society who usually plays more serious characters in in Macbeth, The Tempest and Romeo and Juliet to name just a few.

 She gets to flex her comedic muscles as Puck in A MidSummer Night’s Dream as Puck.

“ Puck likes to play. Puck likes to have his hands in everything. he likes to mess with people and  enjoys watching the results of his meddling,” she said, noting this will be her fifth Lethbridge Shakespeare Performance Society production.

“ It’s fun to play on stage.This is my first comedic role in a comedy,” she said.

 She is most excited to play in front of a live audience. it’s a lot more fun than being on Youtube or Zoom. And there’s a lot of talent in the cast this year,” she said.

“II’m just excited to be in front of an audience again,” she said.

 

Lethbridge Shakespeare Performance Society manager/producer Kate Connolly is excited about how well the cast and crew have overcome  challenges due to Covid.

Puck (Chris Kyle Peterson) Titania (Megan Fennell) and Oberon (Cole Fetting) rehearse A MidSummer Night’s Dream. Photo By Richard Amery

 She said a lot has changed since the troupe started 210 years ago.

“ For the first production, we had very limited costumes, basically whatever people could find at home. It’s very different no. Now we have brilliant, professionally designed costumes. things are very different now,” she said, noting the troupe started organizing in 2011 and debuted “A MidSummer Night’s Dream in 2012.

 She emphasized A MidSummer Night’s Dream will be all over the city this summer rather than just at Galt Gardens.

“We have three performances at  Nikka Yuko Japanese Gardens, two at Casa, three in Galt Gardens, two in Legacy park and  also two out of three of our out of town  performances– at the Coutts Centre outside of Nanton and The Venue in High River,” she said adding she is disappointed they couldn’t  return to the Empress Theatre in Fort Macleod this summer.

“ A couple fell through, but we‘re doing 12 performances this year which is pretty close to our usual 15 or 16,” she said.

“We were able to have open auditions in the park, then the cast and had to rehearse over Zoom. But restrictions  have been lifted, so the cast are able to embrace each other and fight with each other,” she said, thanking two major sponsors, the City of Lethbridge and Young Insurance for the funding to do a production this year. There are also numerous smaller  sponsors who helped make the play a go. Most shows begin at 7 p.m. except for the Nikka Yuko Japanese gardens shows which begin at 7:30 p.m.

 

The July 9 Nikka Yuko show is sold out. They will also be at Casa at 7 p.m., July 10. Tickets for the Nikka Yuko Japanese Gardens shows cost $20 through the Enmax Centre. The others are by donation.

Legg noted because they are performing all over the city, to check the website for start times, locations and ticket prices at http://www.lethbridgeshakespeare.ca/.


— by Richard Amery, L.A.Beat Editor

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