A Midsummer Night's Dream
by William Shakespeare
Hermia's father wants her to marry Demetrius, but she wants to marry Lysander, so she and Lysander run
away together. They tell Helena of their plan to elope, and Helena tells Demetrius, with whom she is in love.
Demetrius follows Hermia, Helena follows Demetrius, and they all end up in a wood near Athens, where
Bottom and his friends are rehearsing a play to present before Duke Theseus on his wedding day.
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Also in the wood, Oberon and Titania, king and queen of the fairies, have quarrellled, and
Oberon takes his revenge on Titania by making her fall in love with Bottom, to whom Puck,
Oberon's servant, has attached the head of an Ass. Oberon and Puck
attempt to sort out the problems of the four human lovers, but only make matters worse.
However, by the morning everything is sorted out, Bottom and his friends perform
their play to the great amusement of everyone, and the fairies bless the three couples when they wed.
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"A Midsummer Night's Dream" - Set design
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This was my first production of a play by Shakespeare, and I aimed to present in a cross between a
Renaissance and Classical setting. The set itself was a permanent arrangement of white rostra and pillars
to suggest the court of Duke Theseus, with strands of leafy green drapery with silver flowers to suggest the
magical world of the woods. Lighting helped to differentiate the locations by changing
from bright and warm in the Athens scenes to cold moonlight in the fairy-haunted woods.
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The costumes were a mixture of Renaissance and Classical, with the men in tunics and tights, while the women wore
high-waisted dresses with various draperies. Colour was used to define the different groups of characters. The court
characters were dressed in warm reds, oranges and golds, Bottom and his friends in dull browns and beiges, and the
fairies in green and silver.
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