Kean theatre takes on classic Shakespeare play

By Breanna Palzer | Published by March 23, 2019

Lights! Camera! Action! This past week, Kean University Theatre Conservatory came together to put their spin on William Shakespeare’s classic play “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

The play consisted of four young adults: Helena, Lysander, Hermia, and Demetrius. Hermia is said by her father to marry Demetrius but rejects him because she is in love with Lysander. At the same time, Hermia’s best friend, Helena, expresses that she is in love with Demetrius, but he does not hold the same feelings for her.

This caused many problems to arise within the friend group, which then resulted in magic events to happen.The group finds themselves involved with the fairy king, Oberon, who plays tricks and casts spells on them to make matters worse.

For this play, there was no stage crew to change the backdrops and bring in the props for the next scenes. These changes, however, were cleverly done during the fairy’s song. During the fairy’s song, the Queen Fairy’s subjects came out from the crowd and danced around the stage causing lights to turn on along with trees and other wood-like decorations to add to the ambiance.

“It’s really unique that they did that,” said Stephanie Martin, junior at Kean. “Instead of having the lights go out and disrupt the mood of the play, they integrated the scene change with the fairy’s dance so that it was a smooth transition.”

The Kean Theatre Conservatory put a lot of blood, sweat, and tears into the play. They spent almost every day beginning from winter break, practicing and learning their parts.

“We would usually have practice from 6:30 p.m. to 10 p.m., sometimes it would even go to 11 p.m.” said Connor McKenna, who played the role of Changeling. “We would also have practice every day and once tech week [came], we would even have practice on the weekends.”

Going on stage in front of hundreds of people can be very nerve wracking.The pressure to get every line right can be a constant alarm sounding in the back of their minds at all times.

“Ya know, it really depends on the person. I wasn’t that nervous leading up to the show, but I think anyone gets a little nervous right before they are about to go on stage. I know I was,” said McKenna.

The show ran from Feb. 22 to March 2 with a “Q & A” after the March 2 show. The cast consisted of 19 Kean students, who all worked hard to make the show a success. Altogether, the cast wounded up doing nine shows within that week.

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