A Midsummer Night’s Dream
April 30 – May 11, 2003
By William Shakespeare
Directed by Charles Fee

Press Release

Great Lakes Theater Festival Presents
William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Great Lakes Theater Festival is proud to present William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, directed by Charles Fee, Great Lakes Theater Festival’s new Producing Artistic Director, on stage at the Ohio Theatre, Playhouse Square, April 30 through May 11, 2003.

Shakespeare’s lyrical, lighthearted romantic comedy follows lovers Hermia and Lysander, who defy father and king to elope. Meanwhile, Bottom the Weaver and his troupe of would-be actors venture into the woods to rehearse a play. But once inside the charmed realm of the warring Queen Titania and King Oberon, fantasy and reality reverse – Oberon’s trickery, aided by his roguish sprite, Puck, ensnares lovers and laborers alike. This night of midsummer madness, brimming with mistaken identity, mismatched lovers and mischief-making fairies, all rights itself at daybreak, with the mortal couples happily paired, and peace restored to the ethereal realm. Set in the 1960’s, this magical, mystery tour-de-force is an uplifting celebration of love lost, transformed and restored.

“I am very excited to be directing this production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the final production of our 2002-2003 season, and equally excited to introduce Andrew May, GLTF’s new Associate Artistic Director, to the Ohio Theatre stage in the role of Bottom the Weaver, and to the Great Lakes Theater Festival staff.”

Andrew May, formerly the artistic associate at The Cleveland Play House, is a significant, critically acclaimed theater artist in Northeast Ohio with a proven background as an actor, director, and arts administrator. In addition to acting in current and future Great Lakes Theater Festival productions, Andrew will assist in play selection, casting, and artistic direction of the theater. He will also augment the work of the GLTF Education Department and assist in various aspects of the production department. Andrew makes his GLTF debut in this production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in the role of Bottom. At CPH, Andrew has been seen in over 23 productions, and has performed at various theaters across the country including Wisdom Bridge, Studio Arena, Goodman and Victory Gardens, to name a few. He recently played the dual role of Don/James in Marsha Studio Theatre in Washington, D.C. As a member of the Milwaukee Repertory Company, he performed in over 22 productions, most recently the American premieres of Steven Dietz’s Force of Nature, Marina Carr’s The Mai and Richard Nelson’s The General from America.

Designers:		Gage Williams		Scenic Designer
		Star Moxley		Costume Designer
		Rick Martin		Lighting Designer
		Peter John Still		Sound Designer
		Janiece Kelley-Kitely		Choreographer
		Ken Merckx		Fight Choreographer
Cast:		Aled Davies		Theseus, Duke of Athens
		George Roth		Egeus, father to Hermia
		Jeffrey C. Hawkins		Lysander, in love with Hermia
		Lynn R. Berg		Demetrius, in love with Hermia
		Tom Willmorth		Philostrate, Master of the Revels to Theseus
		Tom Ford		Quince, a carpenter; Prologue
		Andrew May		Bottom, a weaver; Pyramus
		Mitchell Fields		Flute, a bellows-mender; Thisby
		Mark Gates		Snout, a tinker; Wall
		M. A. Taylor		Snug, a joiner; Lion
		Allan Byrne		Starveling, a tailor; Moonshine
		Cheri Lynne		Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons, betrothed to Theseus
		Carie Yonekawa		Hermia, daughter to Egeus, in love with Lysander
		Sara M. Bruner		Helena, in love with Demetrius
		Aled Davies		Oberon, King of the Fairies
		Cheri Lynne		Titania, Queen of the Fairies
		Tom Willmorth		Puck, or Robin Goodfellow
		Tiffany Herlien		Masques
		Brian Massey
		Kat McIntosh
		Michael Mueller
		Chris Pohl
		Amber Valichnac
		Jennifer Zappola

The performance schedule for A Midsummer Night’s Dream includes previews on April 30 and May 1 at 7:30 p.m. with Opening Night on Friday, May 2 at 7:30 p.m. Performances are scheduled for Wednesday through Saturday evenings at 7:30 p.m.; matinees on Sunday, May 4 and 11 at 1:30 p.m., and a weekday matinee on Friday, May 2 at 1:30 p.m.

A sign-interpreted performance is scheduled for Sunday, May 4 at 1:30 p.m. An audio-described performance is scheduled for Sunday, May 11 at 1:30 p.m. Tickets range in price from $10-$45. For tickets call Tickets.com at 216/241-6000. Discounted group rates and student matinees are available by calling Great Lakes Theater Festival at 216/241-5490.

Great Lakes Theater Festival was founded in 1961 with the mission to bring the power, pleasure and relevance of classic theater to the widest audience possible.

Reviews

Plain Dealer
Saturday, May 3 2003
Beatles And the Bard Mix It Up With Moxie
By Tony Brown

Call it “A Midsummer Night’s Day Tripper.” Call it “Lucy in the Sky With Puck and Hermia and Demetrius and Lysander and Helena.” Call it what you will. But don’t, if you care a ducat about classical theater in this old city of ours, let it pass you by.

I’m talking about a joyful conjoining of Lennon/McCartney and Shakespeare. It’s happening, baby, at a Beatles-infused 1960s take on “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” that opened last night at the Ohio Theatre in downtown Cleveland’s Playhouse Square.

It’s a sprawling, loopy, surrealistic celebration of the end of Great Lakes Theater Festival’s first season under producing artistic director Charles Fee.

And it provides further evidence that if anyone can save this invaluable community resource from starving to death for the want of a few dollars, it’s this dynamic and imaginative populist.

Nick Bottom, the weaver who gets turned into an ass, forlornly sings “I Am the Walrus.”

The star-crossed lovers become stylish mods in round specs and Edwardian suits and miniskirts (by costumer Star Moxley), chasing each other to “Can’t Buy Me Love.”

To the tune of “Help!” the rude mechanicals arrive in the woods in a yellow VW Beetle. Where’s “Baby You Can Drive My Car!” when you need it? When Puck scores the magical flower-power herbs to set all aright, we hear “Norwegian Wood,” an alleged reference to marijuana.

And Oberon, the fairy king, appears and disappears out of the stage dressed up as the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (the Transcendental Meditation guru whom the Beatles met in India) to the sultry sitar groove from George Harrison’s “Within You Without You.”

As apt as all these songs are to the scenes in which Fee has placed them, the thing works so beautifully because the idea was not layered onto the top of the text but sprang from it.

The plot of Shakespeare’s play is: “All You Need Is Love.” Lysander and Hermia defy her father (and the law) by following their hearts. What could be more ’60s than that? The lyrical play and its message that life is “no more yielding than a dream” sounds like it might have been penned by someone with kaleidoscope eyes.

And a surprising and funny payoff scene near the end ties up the Fab Four angle by recreating the cover photograph of the band’s most famously psychedelic album.

While almost everyone at Thursday night’s final preview appeared to love the show, a contingent of high school students cheered loudest. I don’t know what made me smile more, that these teens were digging ancient Shakespeare or the ancient Beatles.

The whole thing takes place in an Athenian court, part of which disappears to reveal a Strawberry Fields (all by set designer Gage Williams) through which the lovers and fairies and mechanicals traipse.

Almost everyone in the 14-member cast performs well and exhaustively, several of them in intelligent multiple roles. And it’s such a physical and pratfall-filled evening, you worry for their knees and backs.

Tom Willmorth comes on like a cross between a shaman and the driver of a Magical Mystery Tour bus as Puck, and he is also an officious Philostrate. Aled Davies, with his white mane and beard, looks like God himself as both Theseus, the Duke of Athens and Oberon. Andrew May again proves himself more than capable of overacting for truly hilarious comic effect as a whinnying, scratching, braying and emoting Bottom.

All four of the young performers playing the lovers run about with carefree zest and abandon (and they look like they’re taking some bruises, too), but Sara M. Bruner’s panting, obedient spaniel of a Helena has just a soupcon more sex appeal than the rest.

My only complaints:

That Cheri Lynne, who certainly looks the Amazon as Hippolyta, Theseus’ intended, and Titania, the fairy queen, doesn’t communicate much energy or presence.

That Fee could have done a little more textual work to give the 170-minute production more focus within the context of his amazing vision.

And especially that this truly marvelous production ends on May 11 after only two weekends. The '60s are over, man. If you missed it, you missed it. Don’t let that happen to “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

Plain Dealer
Sunday, April 27 2003
Dreaming Big
By Tony Brown

Where others might have nightmares, Charles Fee dreams dreams.

Whether he can make his dreams reality as producing artistic director of the financially strapped Great Lakes Theater Festival remains to be seen.

But according to those who know him as an artist and an arts administrator, Cleveland at least will have fun in the meantime floating up stream in the middle of Fee’s dreams.

“Charlie dreams big and explores those dreams and says to those around him, ‘It’s OK to dream big,’” said actor Andrew May, who quit his job at the more stable Cleveland Play House to become Fee’s associate artistic director.

“We may not get the big dream we set out to get. But we may end up with another big dream. And that’s really the fun part of Charlie’s creative process. To see what comes out the other end.”

Appropriately, Fee is winding up his first season at Cleveland’s professional classical theater this week with a Beatles-infused 1960s version of Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” at Playhouse Square’s Ohio Theatre.

It comes only a few weeks after Fee announced bold plans to reinvent Great Lakes next season as a fall and spring repertory company that also will stage a summertime Shakespeare festival that Fee and Playhouse Square officials hope will make downtown Cleveland a warm-months destination.

Those big dreams are all the bigger when you consider that when Fee was hired, he was told Great Lakes would probably merge with the Play House and his services would not be needed after one year.

Fee wisely told the Great Lakes board he would only take the position if he could keep his job as artistic director of the Idaho Shakespeare Festival in Boise.

When merger negotiations with the Play House began to break down, Fee had a rude awakening: Great Lakes was so short on cash, he wasn’t sure he could keep the office open, much less get the first show of the season, “Much Ado About Nothing,” on its feet.

“Little did I know when I took this job that (a) I would have such a great time, and (b) I would have a nightmare financially,” the 45-year-old Fee said with typical sang-froid.

“Much Ado,” directed by Fee’s friend Drew Barr, not only opened, it was a hit, surpassing its sales goal and delighting audiences.

Contributions from the board and budget cuts by Fee stabilized the finances, at least for the time being, and the rest of the season has gone on as planned. Fee and the Great Lakes board have agreed in principle that he will return in 2003-04, and Fee says a contract is as good as signed. He’s also keeping the Boise job.

Going For It
Is Fee a dreamer or just plain nuts for taking on this challenging job when the economy is wreaking havoc on nonprofits?

“Charlie is a person of great integrity who has a special kind of crazy courage and fearlessness that I think is required in these crazy times,” said Barlett Sher, an internationally produced director who is artistic director of Intiman Theatre in Seattle.

“He’s not afraid of the challenges he takes on. And no matter how dark the challenges he takes on, he has a lightness which makes him an amazing leader. People don’t panic around him. You think you’re going to be OK.”

Fee, who stands an imposing 6-foot-2, radiates a well-fed, pink-cheeked, smiling vitality that almost seems to advertise his West Coast roots. He smokes five or six cigarettes a day and has been known to hoist a beer or two after work, but everything about him seems to say, “Health.”

Working two jobs – which often requires 12-hour days beginning with 9 a.m. strategy meetings and ending with rehearsals that stretch until 9 p.m. – has begun to exact a price, however.

Fee suffers from chronic stress symptoms, including occasional chest pains. And he is away from his family – wife Lidia and 8-year-old daughter Alexa, living in Idaho – more than he likes.

But there is a passion about his work that impels Fee.

Business people and arts administrators – Playhouse Square President Art Falco, Cleveland Foundation senior program officer Kathleen Cerveny and Community Partnership for Arts and Culture President Thomas B. Schorgl – praise Fee for his business acumen.

“Just the way he had to come here with no guarantee for the future, he even saw the benefit, the upside, to that,” Cerveny said. “That’s remarkable.”

In fact, Fee at first can come across as a glad-hander with something to sell. But watch him work with artists, and you see another side to Fee.

At a recent rehearsal for “Midsummer,” Fee waved his arms like a Balinese dancer as sitar music from the Beatles’ “Within You Without You” poured through loudspeakers, showing his cast what he wanted them to do in a scene.

He rubbed May’s head and leaned in to talk quietly to him about a nuance in May’s performance as Bottom, the weaver/actor who gets turned into an ass. He listened intently as other actors made suggestions.

“He’s the perfect combination of a real impresario and a deeply sensitive person to artists,” said Sher, who has known Fee for more than 20 years.

“When you first meet him, you worry that maybe he’s a little slick, but no one understands theater or the people who make it better than he does. He can talk to boards and business people, then he turns to talk to artists. He gives you complete support to do interesting and outrageous and fun things.” To fully appreciate how these two halves of Fee came together, you have to go back to his childhood in the San Francisco Bay area, where he was the youngest of three children. His father was a steel executive-turned-academic and his mother a philosophy professor.

Several members of his immediate and extended family were painters. “I always assumed I’d be an artist,” Fee said.

His first significant contact with the theater came on his 13th birthday, when he attended a performance of “The Taming of the Shrew” at San Francisco’s American Conservatory Theatre.

“It was an absolutely incredible production, very visual,” Fee recalled. Turned on, Fee became a regular visitor to ACT through high school.

He found himself in the spring of his senior year without having completed a single college application form. He hurriedly entered the small private college where his mother taught and became a theater student in order to get a family friend for an academic adviser. “I wasn’t thinking career at all,” Fee said.

He turned out to be a proficient actor, and a stint at a summer theater after his sophomore year won him a scholarship to the larger University of the Pacific in Stockton, Calif., where he became more serious about theater. He went on to earn his master’s degree from the University of California, San Diego.

He launched a career as a professional actor in 1981, appearing at fairly large regional theaters in California – the Solvang Theaterfest, La Jolla Playhouse and the Old Globe Theatre – and at the Milwaukee Repertory Theatre.

He settled in Los Angeles in the mid-1980s, but that quickly proved not to be the best place for a young man of his talents. “Either you make it like that,” Fee said, snapping his fingers, “or you are not going to make it.”

After investing and losing his savings in a Chinese restaurant because the owner turned out to be a compulsive gambler (“That was my MBA in high finance,” Fee sighed), Fee considered opening a restaurant of his own.

As he prepared to put his name on the dotted line, he panicked. His future hanging in the balance, he got a call from a friend who was quitting his job as artistic director of Sierra Repertory Theatre, a small company in Sonora, in the foothills east of San Francisco.

“I got up there and I was really impressed,” Fee said. “I thought I could live here and learn how to direct and how to run a company. So I asked my friend, ‘How do I get your job?’”

The way to get the job, Sierra Rep founder and producing director Dennis Jones told him, was to provide his own salary by writing a grant proposal seeking money to pay for the position. Fee won the grant and the job and moved to Sonora in 1988.

He acted, he directed and he helped raise $1 million (“It felt like $30 million,” Fee said) to expand Sierra Rep’s theater, doubling the seating capacity. He also physically helped build the theater, doing ductwork, stuffing insulation into walls and hanging drywall.

“You’re a management virgin until you’ve run a capital campaign and built a new facility,” Fee said.

After five seasons at Sierra Rep, another friend recommended that Idaho Shakespeare hire Fee as its artistic director.

At first, Fee thought Boise “was the end of the world.” But when he visited, he found a company “that was just ready to take off.” He took the job, and Idaho Shakespeare blossomed.

Building An Audience
Founded in 1977 by a group of actors performing on a restaurant patio, Idaho Shakespeare was “a ficus tree in the corner with the last leaf on it” when Fee arrived, said Dana Oland, arts and culture writer for The Idaho Statesman newspaper. Hiring Fee was “a turning point.”

The company was housed in a theater without dressing rooms on a borrowed plot of land near a busy street. Fee raised $4 million to build a new outdoor amphitheater estimated to be worth $7.5 million (when you consider in-kind contributions and the land) in a natural area of foothills on the banks of the Boise River.

He has increased the annual budget of Idaho Shakespeare from $300,000 to $1.9 million.

And he has more than doubled the attendance, to nearly 50,000 people a year. That excludes educational programs and tours, which didn’t exist when Fee arrived but now bring in another 50,000. That’s more people than Great Lakes draws in a year despite having nearly the twice the annual budget and being in a far larger city.

The numbers don’t tell the entire Idaho story, though. Fee has also built an audience in Boise that has come to expect more than light and fluffy summer comedies and musicals.

Sher directed a production of Shakespeare’s “Cymbeline,” a difficult romance combining elements of comedy and tragedy, and then went on to direct again at the Intiman, with England’s Royal Shakespeare Company and in New York. One of Sher’s last productions in Boise was Shakespeare’s “Titus Andronicus,” a bloody play of revenge, that moved on to Seattle.

“You hear ‘Boise,’ and you think, ‘Who are these hicks?’” Sher said. “But thanks to what Charlie has done out there, it’s not the home of ignorant theater audiences. You can take some crazy risks with plays out there. It’s completely free and open.”

When Fee was first approached about Great Lakes, which had a debt of more than $400,000 and faced drastic cutbacks just to survive, he thought: “Too precarious. I don’t need this problem.” But the more he saw, the more he came to view it as a challenge and an opportunity.

When Fee accepted the new job and kept his Idaho position, the idea was to share productions between the two cities and to possibly add other cities where Great Lakes/Idaho Shakespeare productions would tour.

“That may be the future of nonprofit theater,” said Bob Wetherell, a lawyer who is president of the Idaho Shakespeare board. “Does it make any sense to build a ‘Hamlet’ and then tear it down and throw it away?”

But because he didn’t start until last July, Cleveland has been on the receiving end, not the originating end, with three shows that started in Boise being seen in Cleveland. And because the most important thing was making money, comedies and musicals have dominated.

Fee says next season will see a more varied lineup, including “Hamlet” and “Tartuffe” next fall and possibly “King Lear” and “Cymbeline” in summer 2004. And he envisions more shows starting in Cleveland and moving west to Boise.

In fact, although the ’60s “Midsummer” has been seen twice at Idaho Shakespeare, the current version is being built in Cleveland before going to Boise this summer for a third stand.

But Fee is still wrestling with the challenges of working in Cleveland, an older city that is far more set in its ways and a place where the population isn’t growing the way it is in Idaho.

He’s already started, changing the way Great Lakes and Playhouse Square work together and opening avenues of cooperation with smaller companies in town like Dobama Theatre and Cleveland Public Theatre.

Talking to him and hearing his passion, you get the feeling that if anyone can break down barriers, he can. “He actually reinvigorates my belief in theater,” May said. “It’s crazy. He has all these irons in the fire, but somehow the fire gets stoked.

“We who have signed on with him here are sort of hanging on a star, wondering if it will shine. It was a potentially suicidal thing to do, because we don’t know if any of this is going to work. But it certainly won’t be boring, that’s for damn sure.”

© 2002 The Plain Dealer. Used with permission.