by Jeffrey Stanley

QUINCE
Marry, our play is, The most lamentable comedy...
Answer as I call you. Nick Bottom, the weaver.

BOTTOM
Ready. Name what part I am for, and proceed.

Middle Schoolers will present A Midsummer Night’s Dream for the entire community next weekend and have been hard at work in the Meeting House memorizing their Elizabethan couplets for their upcoming transformation into the confused lovers and bungling fairies of Shakespeare’s 400-year-old romantic comedy. The play will be performed on Friday, March 3 at 4 pm and 7 pm and on Saturday, March 4, at 3 pm and 7 pm.

Seventh grader Theo McCarthy plays Demetrius. “He made love to Helena, who starts to like him but he’s like, go away, go away!” Theo explained. “He likes Hermia who likes Lysander. Then Puck puts magic juice on their eyes.”

Things only go downhill from there, spiraling further into romantic chaos as Oberon, king of the fairies, and his minions make mischief upon the star-crossed lovers. Eighth grader Miriam Gentile, who played Woodstock in You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown last fall, is one of two actors playing Puck, one of six roles that have been double cast. “He’s the fairy who messes everything up. He doesn’t really mean to. He puts magic juice on the wrong person,” she explained. “It’s a pretty good role.”

Seventh grader Giancarlo Milea plays Lysander. “He’s like a serious guy who wants to marry Hermia.” Giancarlo, who also played serious guy Schroeder in Charlie Brown, says this play is different. “It’s more serious and more realistic.”

From the stage, director Jeremy Richards called this dress rehearsal to order. He tried to give notes while wrangling the 30 Middle Schoolers who make up the crew and cast. “Theseus, my general note to you overall is to be more animated. Now is the time to really kick him out. Think about being the most powerful person in the room. The level of urgency has got to be—Quiet over there, please!—heightened.”

Jeremy didn’t seem worried about the difficult Shakespearean language and the students’ abilities to not only memorize it but understand it. “Many of them took the Shakespeare workshop I offered in the fall. They’re able to execute the thoughts and actions of the characters well.” His goal was to challenge the students to handle plays that seem challenging to execute but contain topics and characters that excite them. “I thought after working on Lockers last year that something like this would be a good challenge for the kids.”

He hasn’t been disappointed, saying that he’s impressed with the cast and crew’s work, for their earnestness in creating the majesty and wonder of fairyland. “Rarely does one get to see middle school aged students attack with such passion the themes explored in this play.”

Middle School teacher and children’s music celebrity Tony Soll was also onhand to watch the rehearsal. “I’m going to be the one man orchestra pit,” he explained. “It’s not a musical but I’ll play some tunes on the Navajo flute to accompany the fairies. I’m learning some Renaissance music. I might also do something on electric guitar with a little reverb.”

Renaissance music on a Navajo flute and an electric guitar? Well, this is Brooklyn Friends School, and this is A Midsummer Night’s Dream, two realms where anything can happen, so why not?