Midsummer Night's Dream (a lock-down production)
You wouldn’t think it would be possible to create and perform a play in the middle of lockdown, but that is exactly what my class did during distance learning.
My year 7 English class studied Shakespeare’s “Midsummer Night’s Dream” while we were required to stay safe at home. In addition to reading Shakespeare’s writing, we used Seneca Learning online lessons to review details about the plot and characters of the play and to learn about Shakespeare and the world during the time period he wrote the play. This was my first time studying Shakespeare and I quickly realised that it was often hard to understand. My teacher met with my class weekly through Google Meets to discuss the text and help us decode the meanings. We also used “No Fear Shakespeare” as an additional resource to help us understand the script and the complex character relationships. Spending time understanding the deeper meaning of the text made performing the play much more meaningful and fun.
One of our assignments was to create our own version of the fairies in Midsummer Night’s Dream
Dressed as a donkey in the role of Bottom
Our teacher let us volunteer for specific roles and I was assigned the role of Bottom, my first choice! I enjoyed playing Bottom because he is a funny and enthusiastic character and I also enjoyed getting to dress up like a donkey.
To help us prepare for the play, Mrs. Roche recommended several theatre versions of “Midsummer Night’s Dream” that we could watch. My family and I spent several nights watching the different productions at home. I enjoyed seeing all the different ways the play was interpreted but the National Theatre Live production was my very favourite. I hope I will get a chance to see Midsummer Night’s Dream performed live one day.
Our teacher selected a condensed version of Midsummer Night’s Dream for us to perform. Unfortunately, the selected script did not include the Rude Mechanicals play, Pyramus and Thisbe. This was one of my favourite parts of “Midsummer Night’s Dream” so I volunteered to create a script for the play within a play. I found it interesting to review Shakespeare’s script and select my favourite parts to include in our production. I was nervous at first because I wasn’t sure I was a good enough writer to create the script but I decided to take a chance because I really wanted the play within a play to be included. I also liked being able to control what my classmates had to say.
After our class read through the script a few times and practised our lines, it was showtime. We performed the play virtually on Google Meets while Mrs. Roche recorded our production. The virtual setting made performing in a play much easier because I didn’t have to see an audience and worry about stage fright. I wish we had the opportunity to perform the play in class because it would have been more interactive and I would have enjoyed hearing my friend’s laughter. It also would have been nice to perform on a stage so we could learn stage positions and create sets and props. Overall, I think our play was really successful, we learned a lot about “Midsummer Night’s Dream” and we made the best out of an unfortunate situation.
by Harrison (Year 7)
Our Midsummer Night’s Dream Script
My class did an outstanding job performing in our virtual play
