Shakespeare In Action

A behind the scenes tour of A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Today we open A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Central Commerce Collegiate!  We’re very excited to present our first mainstage production in our new home and we’ve invited pretty much everyone we know.  In honour of the event, we thought we’d give you a behind the scenes look at what’s been going on to prepare us for the occasion!

First up: the set!  Here is what it’s going to look like, more or less:

Here is what our stage will look like...

Danger! Lightbulbs sometimes break, thank goodness someone made a sign...I would've cartwheeled otherwise!

One room out of our three was dedicated to building the set and backdrop.  While touring with my camera, I encountered the above sign on the door.  It must have been quite the adventure in that room as everything was coming together!  So here’s a look at how the backdrop and trees were made by cutting trunks from canvas and painting them to look like multi-coloured tree trunks.

Making the backdrop: measuring triangles!

A box full of colours!

Resourcefulness leads to recycled paint containers.

The mess remains...

Now that we have the stage under control, it’s time to clothe those actors! So bust out that sewing machine, we’re making costumes.  And masks, many masks!

Let's get sewing!

Costumes, as organized by character...

The sketches are up next to the sewing machine...

Oberon's cape of feathers...an adventure in hot glue!

A few finished masks and a lot of art supplies!

Mixing paint to make masks...

A finished mask...and more sketches.

And that is all we’re going to show you! If you want to see the rest, you’ll have to come see our show…