Shakespeare outdoors for six shows

By Zachary Lewis
zlewis@hippopress.com

Ballet Misha and Theatre Kapow were excited when the Dana Center at Saint Anselm had the idea to present A Midsummer Night’s Dream and have it produced by these two innovative artistic organizations. They will perform together for six outside performances starting on Thursday, July 18.

Saint Anselm is no stranger to outdoor Shakespeare performances, notably hosting a recitation of the Bard’s sonnets each year on his birthday.

“I’d always admired other larger cities doing [outdoor shows] … I thought why can’t we do this here up here on the hilltop at Saint A’s,” said Joseph Deleault, Director of the Dana Center. “We present it in front of the beautiful Alumni Hall, which is at the center of campus, which is illuminated … it’s family-friendly and it’s really a great evening for everyone.”

Theatre Kapow has performed Shakespeare on the Green at Saint Anselm in the past, and Ballet Misha has performed the Nutcracker here. The Dana Center decided to partner with Ballet Misha “because they do such great work,” Deleault said.

The production features six actors from Theatre Kapow and 15 dancers from Ballet Misha. Cecilia Lomanno, a Ballet Misha company member, will serve as the seventh actor, performing the role of Puck.

“All of the actors and dancers are female-presenting, women and non-binary people, which is another thing that I think is really cool about our production,” said Emma Cahoon, director of the production.

Minimalism is a driving force of the production. “The costumes are very simple and the lighting is very simple,” Cahoon said. The music will come from the Mendelssohn score of the play.

Cahoon is a big fan of the classics.

“I really love working with plays that people have their own preconceived notions or associations with, and I think Midsummer is one of the greatest examples of that,” Cahoon said. “I think it’s really exciting to take pieces like that and enliven them in a way that people might not have encountered in the text before.”

Cahoon’s dance background has aided her in her professional directorial debut; she graduated in May with a BFA in Theatre Arts from Boston University.

“I find ways to communicate with [the performers] in a language that they already know, the dance language, and that happens to come really easily to me because I grew up as a dancer myself,” Cahoon said. “I was a tap dancer for quite a while and I also dabbled in ballet and jazz and modern.”

Those experiences lend perfectly to collaboration with New Hampshire’s premier ballet company. Amy Fortier, Director of Ballet Misha and its affiliate school Dimensions in Dance, is excited for the Midsummer Night’s performances.

“It’s really fun for me to get to work on a project like this because normally we just do ballet, right, or we just do dance and the dancers don’t ever have to speak,” Fortier said. The speaking roles are of the fairies in Queen Titania’s court.

“My professional dancers are playing the roles of … Peace Blossom, Mustard Seed, Cobweb, and Moss,” Fortier said. “They don’t have tons of lines but they do have lines, and it’s been fun having to work with them on that process because they’re definitely not used to having to speak.”

Ballet Misha does a full-length ballet version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream that Fortier first choreographed in 2010. For this version, she said, “They have edited out some of the text to condense it down to an hour-and-a-half-long production that they do straight through without an intermission.”

Aside from the speaking roles, the dancers are essentially an emotable and breathable set.

“The dancers are almost like a moving set because it’s a minimalist production and the dancers fill in the space on stage where maybe, normally, the set of a forest or the set of Athens would be,” Fortier said. “I am bringing in dancers to represent the fairies … I have dancers representing the woods that they go through and then I have dancers who are representing the transition back to the city of Athens and they do different types of dance movement to kind of convey the different moods of … Athens versus the forest.” How does a human mimic a tree? “The girls who are dancing as part of the forest have a really soft, languid movement. They’re moving very slowly to represent the forest behind the actors. The dancers representing the transition back into Athens, it’s more of a courtly dance. They’re wearing these white Grecian dresses. I’ve tried to keep it kind of statuesque.”

Everything that isn’t acting or music will be the dancers. “The dancers are the ambiance or the ambient noise in the background of the actors delivering their lines,” she said.

“It’s really exciting for us because we’ve only ever done it as a movement-based telling of the story…. It’s always really exciting for dancers to get to perform outside. There’s something really freeing about it. ” Fortier said.

A second production may be added to the roster for next year, “but we haven’t gotten to that point yet,” Deleault said.

Whether it’s the heartbeat-like iambic pentameter that draws attendees to the production, the beautiful swirls of movement of the dancers like a William Blake painting of the play come to life, or just the excuse to sit outside with the evening summer sky for a few hours, Shakespeare has been providing an escape for hundreds of years, and today is no different.

Shakespeare on the Green: A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Presented by the Dana Center, produced by Ballet Misha and Theatre Kapow
Where: Saint Anselm College, 100 Saint Anselm Drive, Manchester
When: Thursday, July 18, Friday, July 19, Saturday, July 20, Thursday, July 25, Friday, July 26, and Saturday, July 27, at 7:30 p.m.
Tickets: $25, free for kids 12; tickets.anselm.edu
Bring your own food, drinks, blankets, etc.

Featured image: Courtesy photo.