· Season 11 ·

A Midsummer Evening of Shakespeare Shorts

Featuring:

A Midsummer Night's Dream

By William Shakespeare
Directed by Julia Schoemig

Measure for Measure 

By William Shakespeare
Directed by Sophie Kelly-Hedrick

Cymbeline

By William Shakespeare
Directed by Sophie Hankes

Twelfth Night

By William Shakespeare
Directed by Marlene Probst

Dark Play, Or Stories for Boys

By Carlos Murillo
Directed by Hannah Klein, Assistant Directed by Nate Kelderman

Summary:
       During a college sexual encounter, the girl in Nick's bed wants to know why his abdomen is covered in scars. Does Nick tell the truth, or does he do what he does so well—weave an elaborate tale? The question launches him into a memory. An outsider at age fourteen, Nick discovers the intoxicating pleasures of inventing fake personalities in the chat rooms of the World Wide Web. Adam's online profile, and the words "I want to fall in love," pique his curiosity. Nick invents Rachel, the girl of Adam's dreams, and his curiosity becomes obsession. As Adam mounts the pressure to meet his Internet love in the real world, Nick creates ever more elaborate deceptions to fuel Adam's desire. When the boys finally meet in the real world, the consequences are catastrophic. A tale of deception, fluid personality and sexual license in the Internet age, DARK PLAY examines what happens when the real world and virtual world collide. - Dramatists Play Service

What Every Girl Should Know

By Monica Byrne
Directed by Eliza Jacobson, Assistant Directed by Louise Heller

Summary:
        In a Catholic reformatory in 1914, three teenage girls (Anne, Theresa, and Lucy) pass the time with masturbation rituals, though they’re innocent of the “sinful” nature of their act. Then a belligerent new girl, Joan, shows up, bearing illegal contraband: birth control materials distributed by the women’s-rights activist Margaret Sanger. The girls start reading the material and jokingly pretend to venerate Sanger as a saint, but then undergo a profound conversion experience. They begin to follow Sanger’s life in the newspaper, pretending that they’re traveling on their own, assassinating enemies and taking lovers at will. Through their letters to each other, they reveal their pasts, marked by abuse. The girls slide deeper and deeper into their fantasy world, to the extent that objects from their fantasy world start appearing in the real one—including a baby. - Dramatists Play Service