OHS staging Coachella-inspired 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'

SHOWTIMES “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” runs at 7 p.m. May 2-4, and 1:30 p.m. on May 5 at Owatonna High School. Tickets are $8 for adults and $5 for students and seniors. Seating is limited to 96 per show. To reserve tickets, visit

owatonnaactivities.com/ticketing

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For his third time directing “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” Erik Eitrheim wanted to try something different.

Different may be an understatement. It’s safe to say no one has seen a take on the beloved Shakespeare comedy quite like the production set to debut on the Owatonna High School stage Thursday, May 2.

To capture the wild revelry of the fairy world the play’s characters find themselves in, Eitrheim drew on some fitting contemporary influences.

“Stylistically, it’s a mash-up of almost everything you can imagine. Our starting point was like Burning Man meets Coachella,” said Eitrheim.

In addition to updating the play’s ancient Greek setting, he also chose to stage it in the round, with the audience encircling the action on stage. It will have limited seating, with only 96 seats per show.

“It pulls people a little closer to the action. I think with the way we’ve staged this and what we’ve been doing with it, people are going to be very much in the show and a part of the show as we’re going through it, and I think they’re really going to love it,” said Eitrheim.

The setting Eitrheim envisioned called for outrageous fashions, and Costumer Betsy Cole saw a ripe opportunity to experiment. She worked one-on-one with students, drawing on influences from glam rock to reality TV to find the right aesthetic for each character.

“I think one of the coolest parts about Shakespeare is how it can be played with and put in different universes. We hope that picking some of these archetypes and pop culture makes it more accessible and fun for people,” said Cole.

Cole has always involved students in the costuming process, but never to such a collaborative extent.

“Through the process of getting the characters, we asked ‘what would be on your character’s playlist?’ We have Y2K boy band, we have hippie, we have like Taylor Swift horse girl,” Cole laughed.

She noted Little Theatre of Owatonna’s recent costume sale was a good source of pieces, which she “Frankensteined” into costumes for the play’s fairy characters.

For the character Hermia, one of the young lovers the play centers on, Justice Moots said she and Cole started with a K-pop aesthetic before leaning into a more “princessy and bougie” look. Maddy Reese plays Hermia’s disapproving mother Egeus, whose appearance Cole likened to a stereotypical mob wife or a cast member of “The Real Housewives.”

Boldin Krause, who plays a dimwitted actor named Snout, chose an appropriately ridiculous costume with a plastic visor, garish shirt and jean shorts.

“I was going for something neon, bright, stands out, because I think my character is silly, dumb, doesn’t really know what’s going on. I kind of wanted to emulate that in my costume, just throw a bunch of things together,” said Krause.

Snout is one of the Mechanicals, a troupe of actors that’s hired to perform at the duke of Athens’ wedding, resulting in a play within a play, one of Shakespeare’s favorite devices.

Reuel Borkenhagen portrays Bottom, the brash, wannabe leading man of the troupe. As the Mechanicals actors were rifling through the drama department’s costume collection, he and Cole landed on a red blazer and paired it with the “most obnoxious” shirt they could find.

The part calls for an outlandish costume change when the mischievous fairy Puck transforms his head into that of a donkey. The headpiece isn’t the most comfortable, but Borkenhagen laughed off the “sacrifices” that actors must make. He also noted how much work the cast and crew has done in a very tight timeframe.

“It’s been a quick turnaround for this show. We did it in four weeks. We just finished Newsies and then we were right into this. We’ve put together a whole show, we’ve got the set together, everyone figured out their characters. It happened really fast, but it’s come together really well,” said Borkenhagen.

Despite the close deadline, Eitrheim and longtime Technical Director Doc Grauberger wanted to bring the spectacle of a music festival to the stage. Grauberger, who estimated he’s worked on nine productions of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” over the last 40 years, promised “special effects galore,” including strobe lights, fog and disco balls.

Eitrheim said capturing the spirit of Shakespeare’s dialogue also required some “classroom work” with the actors on the front end. Once they cleared that hurdle however, performing Shakespeare was much like working with any other material.

“He wants you to know what you’re saying so you can emulate the emotions that your character’s going through. It becomes a lot easier to understand and portray that to the audience,” said Krause.

For Moots, delivering the dialogue helped her connect with Shakespeare in a new way.

“Reading it is a lot more confusing, to be honest. Once you’re performing it, you understand the scenes a lot more, you’ve read over it a bunch of times,” she said. “I think it’ll be a lot easier for people to understand when they actually come watch us rather than read ‘Romeo and Juliet’ in a book.”

Borkenhagen hadn’t performed Shakespeare before, but found the rhyme and meter of his dialogue assisted with memorization.

“It’s different from how I usually learn lines, but it was cool,” he said.

According to Eitrheim, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” offers a good learning experience for young actors, and demonstrates just how funny the Bard could be.

“Shakespeare has some wonderful language that you can learn and play with and use as you’re acting. It’s a wonderful vehicle for actors to grow. It’s just a fun show too,” said Eithreim.