Y featuringZ
Edward Berkeley, a seasoned director
and
founding artistic director of New York’s Willow Cabin Theater
Company, will direct a pared-down version of the Shakespeare
play with seven actors who will each play multiple characters in
a smattering of scenes. “Semi-staging is the best description,” says
Berkeley. Much of the action will take place downstage of the musicians, he says, and there will also be cleared routes through the
orchestra “used like paths in the forest.” Berkeley was also hoping
to have upside-down trees suspended from above to suggest the
woods. “It’s an image that I like,” he says, “inverted trees are a way
of understanding the heavens nourishing the earth.”
Berkeley has directed similarly pared-down productions of
Midsummer in the past. More than two decades ago, Willow
Cabin grew out of off-Broadway’s