'A Midsummer Night’s Dream'

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June 24, 2021 - July 8, 2021 | VIRTUAL EVENT

FREE

The link will be provided prior to June 24.

Join us for an on-demand performance of Shakespeare's classic tale, filmed in Yardley Hall and co-directed by Heart of America Shakespeare Festival's Sidonie Garrett and Matt Rapport.

Set in Athens, the play follows the trials, heartaches and eventual happiness of two Athenian couples and the entertaining antics of meddling, magical fairies. The main plot involves two sets of couples—Hermia and Lysander and Helena and Demetrius—whose romances are complicated by the whims of Oberon and Titania, king and queen of the fairies, and their servant, Puck.

Shakespeare's lighthearted play explores the capricious, dreamlike and sometimes ridiculous nature of love. It highlights more humor with its play-within-a-play format in which a group of Athenian craftsmen, known as the mechanicals, celebrate the upcoming marriage of Duke Theseus and the Amazonian Queen Hippolyta by putting on an amateur version of a play.

The story concludes with the fairies blessing the couples and Puck speaking directly to the audience, hoping they have not been offended by the play. He suggests that if the play has offended, it may be nothing more than a dream.

Sidonie Garrett, HASF Executive Artistic Director

Sidonie Garrett is the Executive Artistic Director of the Heart of America Shakespeare Festival (HASF). She has directed their past five season’s productions – “Much Ado About Nothing,” “Hamlet,” “The Winter’s Tale,” “King Lear” and “Twelfth Night” – which were all awarded Best Play in Pitch Magazine’s “Best of KC.”

Additionally, Garrett has directed more than 13 previous HASF productions and the first indoor HASF production, “The Merchant of Venice,” a collaborative production with the Jewish Community Center and Midwest Trust Center. She’s directed other HASF collaborations with MTC, as well as Bach Aria Soloists, the Grammy Award-winning Kansas City Chorale, Kansas City Ballet, Kansas City Symphony, Kansas City Actors Theatre, KC Repertory Theatre and Kansas City Museum.

Prior to joining HASF, Garrett worked as a freelance director with producing partner Jan Rogge and their company, Ground Zero Productions. Her experience working with new plays took her to New York City, where she directed the off-Broadway production of “Thanatos.” Garrett also assistant directed the off-Broadway premiere of the interactive “Aunt Chooch’s Birthday Party.”

Locally, she’s directed at Unicorn Theatre, Kansas City Actors Theatre, Coterie Theatre, American Heartland Theatre, University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC), The J and Fourth Wall Productions. Garrett also directed a script-in-hand reading of “Much Ado About Nothing” as part of the First Folio exhibition at the KC Public Library, eight plays in the first KC One-Minute Play Festival and a staged reading of “Rights of Passage” as part of the KC Rep’s OriginKC, a new play festival.

Matt Rapport, HASF Director of Education

Matt Rapport has been a performing arts teacher in and around Kansas City for more than 20 years. His areas of expertise include Shakespeare, improvisation and acting, as well as physical skills including juggling, puppetry and physical comedy. He has taught in public schools, community centers and art camps. Before assuming his leadership position with the Festival, Rapport was a lead teaching artist with HASF as well as the Coterie Theatre, KC Repertory Theatre, Accessible Arts and Theatre for Young America.

Some of Rapport’s more rewarding teaching experiences have been with underserved students, including work with the Shakespeare Festival at ReStart, a homeless shelter in Kansas City, Mo., and Kansas City Repertory Theatre at DeLaSalle and Hilltop, both high schools for adjudicated youths. Rapport has also taught adults with Down syndrome in a program offered through Accessible Arts.

Rapport is a professional actor and musician with many local and regional credits. He was an original member of the cast of the Festival’s “Shakespeare to Go!” and co-created and co-directed the Festival’s “Romeo and Juliet to Go!” He has been seen on the festival stage numerous times, including in “The Taming of the Shrew,” “Julius Caesar,” “Romeo and Juliet,” “Macbeth,” “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” “As You Like It,” “King Lear” and “The Merchant of Venice.”