PennWest California’s adaptation of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” will send its audiences into a vibrant new world of Shakespeare. It also gives audiences a new take on love, magic, and transformation. Unlike most of Shakespeare’s works, “Midsummer” is one of his most original works, which puts John Paul Staszel, a professor of theatre at Penn West Cal, up to the challenge.

Staszel said, “The language is always a challenge, as it is with any Shakespeare play.”

Since this is a more modern version of the classic play, he said, “We were able to work with a professional playwright and Shakespeare scholar. He assumes the role of the production dramaturge that was very helpful to the students and myself”.

He also said his favorite part about working on this piece with students was “seeing them overcome their fear with Shakespeare!”

Senior Ariel Schurg explained the process of how to design a set for a show as classic as Shakespeare.

Schurg said, “When I was reading the script, it was changed to be more modern and have a music festival vibe to it. So, I investigated the “Electric Forest Festival” so I could base it off that. When you do set design you have to do a scene breakdown, which is telling you what actor is on stage and when.”

Schurg discussed the idea behind how they designed two trees for the show. “I started with wanting a forest with trees, but then me and JP sat down and came up with the ideas for the trees and a bright whimsical color pallet then settled on an idea. Sabrina helped me a lot as well with coming up with textures and coming up with the idea for the trees.”

Sophomore Theatre major Jacob Kerr plays Theseus and said, “My favorite part about this character is that he is loud, selfish, and rude. Playing a role like this on stage is a lot of fun because it’s completely different to how I act in real life.”

When asked what the hardest thing about Shakespeare, he said, “The toughest thing about Shakespeare is that most of the time, the language can be difficult to follow when listening to it in the audience. As actors, it is our job to take the Shakespearian text and give a very clear presentation of what is happening in the story. To do this, we rely heavily on our movements and inflection to interpret what our characters are saying and feeling. However, perfecting this takes lots of practice, and even when perfected, some audience members may still feel clueless because of just how different this language is from our own. My favorite thing about this show in particular is that even though the story might be hard to follow at times, it’s filled with lots of physical comedic moments that can make any audience laugh.”

“A Midsummer Night’s Dream” runs from April 10-12 and is a show you don’t want to miss. It’s a one-of-a-kind experience!