If it’s August in New Haven, it must be time for Shakespeare in the park, and sure enough, Elm Shakespeare Company (ESC) is enchanting audiences with this year’s production, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, now being performed in New Haven’s Edgerton Park. The Southern Theatre Department is well represented in this rollicking Bollywood-inspired vision of Shakespeare’s beloved romance, produced in partnership with The Shakespeare Company of India.
The play runs from August 14th-31st on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays (no Mondays), and admission is free and open to everyone. This year is ESC’s 30th year of producing Shakespeare plays in the park.
Senior theatre major Kira Kelly is in the cast, playing Snug the Joiner, one of a hilarious band of “rude mechanicals.” Professor Heidi Leigh Hanson is the play’s costume designer, and the costumes were built on campus in the SCSU costume shop with the help of Professor Richard Harding.
Professor Nathan Roberts is the show’s sound designer, assisted by student Bob Tait.
Professor Rebecca Goodheart is the play’s co-director and is in her 10th season as Producing Artistic Director of the Elm Shakespeare Company.
ESC is a premiere theater company known for producing outstanding theater and educational programs that enrich the lives of people from widely diverse cultural, socioeconomic and educational backgrounds. Since 2016, ESC has been officially “in residence” at Southern, after formalizing a relationship that spanned two decades during which ESC rehearsed its actors and built the sets for its productions at Lyman Center.
