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A long-time
Brandywine Hundred tradition is about to be revived as the
newly formed Delaware Shakespeare Festival prepares for its
premier presentation.
Appropriately enough, 'A Midsummer
Night's Dream' was chosen as the first show. It will be staged
on Aug. 1, 2, 8 and 9 at 7 p.m. and on Aug. 3 at 2 p.m. outdoors
on the campus of Archmere Academy in Claymont. Admission is $5.
Molly Cahill, the festival's
founder and artistic director, said the play was chosen because
"it is a fun
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show to start our company." It also
is one of the most appealing of William Shakespeare's works to a
modern audience.
Set in a woods near Athens, the
romantic comedy revolves around the misadventures which occur
when lovers escaping a forced marriage, a band of fairies
celebrating the seasonal holiday -- familiar to Shakespeare's
original Elizabethan English audiences but not to Athenians --
and a bumbling group of very amateur thespians rehearsing a play
to be peformed at their duke's nuptuals collide. As Puck is wont
to say: "What fools these mortals be."
Cahill, a 1997 Archmere graduate who
majored in theater at Northwestern University, has assembled a
cast widely diversified in age and backgrounds. They, too, are
amateurs, ranging from an English professor to a Web designer,
but considerably more polished than the play-within-a-play
troupe they portray.
The common bound, she said, is a
love of theater.
The festival is a one-show affair
this year, she said, but it is hoped to evolve into a
summer-theater project with two or three shows.
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Molly Cahill is also
a member of the cast. |
Eventually, some professionals may
be employed, as is frequently done in such projects.
A more immediate goal, she said, is
to gather an audience "to come and have a good time."
As illustrated by this Delaforum
photo album, compiled at a recent dress rehearsal, the large
cast is approaching it in much the same vein.
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Carina Czipoth and
Kati Sparre |
Victoria Healey |
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Joseph Lindgren
Karen Murtha,
Scott Robertson
and Pam Huxstable |
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