The Lovers

A Midsummer Night's Dream

When it came time to cast the humans, we were faced with a number of tough choices. With the four lovers, there was a particular challenge in that we needed not only chemistry within the couples, but we needed all four to be really strong and compatible with any of the other four. During various points in the show, just about any pairing in the group are close friends, and at other times, enemies. Both guys start out pursuing Hermia, but later spend time chasing Helena and shirking Hermia. In the beginning, the girls are best friends, but later, have a huge argument. We had an easy starting point: two of the group regulars were a married couple, and while we did consider other options, none of them had chemistry as good as theirs. So then it was a simpler matter to find the two more to make it work. At the end of casting, we had a perfect quartet. Where one was maybe weaker, another had strength. They balanced each other remarkably well.

Then one of our guys was faced with a scheduling conflict mandated by his major, and we were left with about a month to find a new guy, bring him in, teach him the lines, hope the chemistry still clicked, and put on a show. It took a few attempts, but we finally found him. He hadn't done a lot of acting before and was new to the group, but the first time we saw him read with the other three, we knew he was right. He wasn't the same as the guy who had left, but he brought his own strengths, his own spin on things, and the other three did a great job adjusting to bring him in flawlessly.

When it came to costuming, we had not only our Victorian-inspired era to guide us, but also several clues based on the characters, to guide us. For the girls, it was important that they be equal but opposite. They had grown up together, were presumably of similar social status, and would be exposed to the same fashions of the day. However, we gather that Helena is less flirty, more of a tomboy, and less pursued by the boys than Hermia. To that end, we put Hermia in a peach dress covered in white lace and ruffles and Helena in a more streamlined blue dress, with black trim, and only a little bit of lace.

For the guys, we just raided closets and second hand stores, finding suits for the main scenes. In the final scene, the wedding, they needed tuxes, so we just called up guys from the college choir and asked if we might borrow theirs. This was by far the simplest costuming of the show.

Helena's dress was an existing garment one of the other actresses owned. It didn't fit our Helena, but I was determined to make it work. I added a white blouse and black underskirt to give it a good foundation. I brought in the side seams, and added in the black lace trims and black facings. I did everything with large stitches that would be easy to remove at the end of the production to return the dress in its original condition.

Hermia's was quite another matter. Not only did we construct her dress from scratch, but we had an added challenge in that our actress was five months pregnant by the time performances came around. She told us at auditions, so we asked her to consult with her doctor. He said the activity of the role would be fine, and that she wouldn't be showing too terribly much. He was wrong. While she stayed perfectly healthy, and their baby girl is gorgeous and healthy, she was definitely a little rounder during performances than we had originally expected. We covered the bodice of her dress in frills and lace, including some hourglass shaped lines, coming to a point in the middle of her belly, serving to disguise her condition and slim her. It was successful. When people saw her out of costume in the days surrounding performances, they were startled to realize that actress as big as she had gotten could carry off a romantic lead so well.

Whether it was bickering or loving, shoving or snuggling, bringing dresses in or letting dresses out, losing an actor or gaining a new one, the lovers were a fantastic group to work with. Their scenes were fun to direct and a joy to watch.

Photography in this entry by James Ratchford, Zachary Garber, and Molly Wilson