A Midsummer Night's Dream

Zona Gale Theatre
Portage Center for the Arts
Portage, WI
Nov. 2004
Scenic Design by Anne Horjus
Costume Design by Judy Kruger and Beth Turner
Lighting Design by Katie Austin

"'The battle with the Centaurs, to be sung
By an Athenian eunuch to the harp.'
We'll none of that... "

Poster - design by Patrick Strain

Selected research images:

Farrah Fawcet	David Bowie	Fleetwood Mac
Slade	Sweet	Queen
Make-up inspiration.	Fashion inspiration.	Mechanicals in leisure suits.
Stylish turntable.	70's style.	Tube Top.

70's TV:
Brady Bunch, Sesame Street, Marcus Welby, M.D, Welcome Back Kotter, The Partridge Family, Adam 12, The GONG Show, Sanford and Son, Gunsmoke, Baretta, Mary Tyler Moore, Mannix, Hawaii 5-0, Barney Miller, Columbo, Mash, Dallas, Hawaii 5-0, Kojack, Wonder Woman, All in the Family, The Bionic Woman, The Jefferson's, Chico and the Man, Mork and Mindy, Maude, Starsky & Hutch, Charlie's Angels, Happy Days, Laverne & Shirley, Three's Company, 6 Million Dollar Man, Dukes of Hazard, Room 222, All my Children, One day at a time, Jonny Carson on the Tonight Show, One Life to Live, That's Incredible, Monty Python's Flying Circus, Soap, *"Live from New York, it's Saturday Night!" Debut - 1975! The original cast is the best there ever was.

70's Movies:
1970, Love Story, Airport, The Aristocats, Catch-22, Gimme Shelter, Let It Be, Woodstock, M*A*S*H, Patton, Five Easy Pieces, Diary of A Mad Housewife, Tora! Tora! Tora!, 1971, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, *Billy Jack, Bananas, Harold And Maude, Play Misty For Me, Fiddler on The Roof, Willard, Carnal Knowledge, Shaft, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, A Clockwork Orange, The French Connection, Diamonds Are Forever, Klute, Dirty Harry, Friends, The Last Picture Show, Summer of '42, 1972,  Go ask Alice, The Godfather, Deliverance, Jeremiah Johnson, The Poseidon Adventure, The Candidate, What's Up Doc, Superfly, Play It Again, Sam, Slaughterhouse Five, Cabaret, 1973, *American Graffiti, The Way We Were, The Exorcist, Paper Moon, The Sting, Live And Let Die, Serpico, Day of the Jackal, Jonathan Livingston Seagull, Last Tango In Paris, Walking Tall, Jesus Christ, Superstar, 1974, Chinatown, Towering Inferno, Young Frankenstein, Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Earthquake, Blazing Saddles, The Great Gatsby, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Murder on the Orient Express, 1975, *The Rocky Horror Picture <http://www.robinsweb.com/70s/rocky02.jpg> Show, *Jaws, Shampoo, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Dog Day Afternoon, The Day of the Locust, Nashville, Emmanuelle, Rooster Cogburn, Tommy, 1976, Rocky, A Star Is Born, Silent Movie, Car Wash, The Outlaw Josey Wales, King Kong, Taxi Driver, The Marathon Man, All The President's Men, 1977, Saturday Night Fever, You Light Up My Life, *Star Wars, Smokey and the Bandit, The Goodbye Girl, Annie Hall, Carrie, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Looking For Mr. Goodbar, The Kentucky Fried Movie, Oh God!, Airport '77, Julia, The Turning Point, 1978, Grease, Superman, Every Which Way But Loose, The Deer Hunter, American Hot Wax, Natl. Lampoon's Animal House, The Buddy Holly Story, Coming Home, Halloween, Midnight Express, Thank God, It's Friday, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Wiz, 1979, Kramer vs. Kramer, The Jerk, Being There, Alien, Hair, 10, Breaking Away, The China Syndrome, The Amityville Horror, Norma Rae, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, All That Jazz, Manhattan, The Muppet Movie, Starting Over, The Wanderers, The Rose, Apocalypse Now.
 I remember going to the Queens Chapel Drive-in with friends hiding in the trunk of my car, to watch horror flicks such as "Play Misty for Me", "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and "Last House on the Left."

70's Advertising:
My bologna has a first name: It's O-s-c-a-r...
Choosy Moms, Choose Jif - (Annette Funicello)
Wessonality! (Florence Henderson for Wesson)
Hey, Mikey --He likes it! (Life Cereal)
You've come along way baby! (Virginia Slims)
A sloppy Jo is a sandwich, but a Manwhich is a Meal!
"Two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions, on a sesame seeded bun... " (McDonalds)
Weables wobble, but they won't fall down!
Coke adds Life!
"I wish I were an Oscar Meyer weiner, that is what I truly want to be.....'cause if I were an Oscar Meyer Weiner, everyone would be in love with me"
I can't believe I ate the w-h-o-l-e thing! (Alka Seltzer)

 70's language:
ROCK ON!!, Far Out, Man!, Flower Power, What's up, Dude?, Sit on it!, Que Pasa?, Say What?!, Right On!, What's Happenin'?, Neato!, Cool, Keep on Truckin', Groooovy, Man, Hey, Foxy Lady!, Wanna make something of it?, Sex, Drugs, and Rock 'n Roll!!!!, Pardy Hardy! Biological Clock ’78, Birth Mother 75, Come out 75, Palimony 78, Personal Trainer 75, Psychobabble 77, Pump Iron 77, Quality Time 77, Rehab 78, Significant other 77.

What was going on:
At Rock Concerts, everyone lighting a match, Shag hair cuts, Shag Carpeting, Avocado green & harvest gold appliances, Bean Bag chairs, Stridex pads and Clearasil, Using "sealing wax", Using Sun-in on your hair, Beatlemania, Powdered hair cleaner called Pssssssst! (Made your hair dirtier), Debut of Nacho Cheese Doritos, Guys wore long hair Cruisin', Nixon, Watergate, Deep Throat, Retreads, Dorothy Hamil, Pet Rocks, Mood Rings, Gallagher, George Carlin, The Weiner Mobile, Black Power, Black Panthers, Civil Rights,Womens Lib, Gloria Steinem, Roe v. Wade, Billie Jean King, Helen Reddy - "I am Woman", Tiger Beat & 16 Magazine, Sun tanning lotion that turned you orange, Mini-Bikes, Farrah Fawcett, Don Kirchner's Rock Concert, Quadraphonic Stereos, Wolfman Jack, Vinyl Records, 8-Track Tapes, Streakers!!!, Intro of cassette tapes, CB Radios, That's a big 10-4!, Greasers, Freaks, Jocks, Nerds, Disco, "Do the Bump", "Shake your Booty", Saturday Night Live, Jimmy Carter, a peanut farmer, was president., Billy Beer, Ding Dong! Avon calling!, Shaklee Vitamins, Amway Distributors, Howard Cosell, China Syndrome, Casey Kasem, Dick Clark, American Bandstand
 

70's fashion:
Peasant Tops (early 70's) , Chain belts, Pea coats, Tight Levi Jeans, Jeans with fringe around the bottom, Over Alls, Elephant Bells, Painter Pants, Platform Shoes, Earth Shoes, Desert Boots, Clogs, Dr. Sholls, cheap Flip Flops, Army Jackets, Black High-Tops. Loves Baby Soft Perfume, Bonnie Bell Cosmetics, Watermelon and Bubble Gum Lip Gloss. Heaven Sent Perfume. Guys wore English Leather and ? Mid 70's: Halter Tops, Tube Tops, Thin plucked eye brows. Mirrored Sunglasses. Shag hair cuts. We called our bangs 'wings', as in "Gotta get my wings cut". Bad hair day? No problem, just wear a bandana. Farrah's style was all the rage.

Production Photos:

Lover's plead before the Duke.

An Oberon fairy, Oberon (black hair), Puck (to his left) listen to Titania with Changeling boy and Titania's Fairy as Titania begins the tale of how she rescued the Changeling Boy.

Helena unleashes her venom on Lysander.

Puck watches as Bottom awakes to discover he's had a rare vision.

The Mechanicals - mostly young apprentices, i' troth, present the "Most Lamentable Comedy and Most Cruel Death of Pyramus and Thisby."

THE SCRIPT USED FOR PRODUCTION

Production Notes: This production was my first directing expedition in Portage. As such, I wanted to start with a show I knew well, a comedy and a great piece of theatre. Midsummer fit all these easily. I had designed the scenery and lighting for a production previously that was set in the 1960's. My choice to set the show in the 70's was for various reasons. First and foremost, it resonated for me, a child of the 70's, and my memories of young love, and allowed the show a nostalgic feel for theatre-goers my age, for whom we wanted to cultivate an audience. Next, the 70's were in the midst of a revival. Fashion and TV ("That '70's Show") were in that full on 70's mode we all (who grew up then) feared would come some day, so the students involved, several die-hard Queen fans included, were excited to give it a go. Lastly, and this dovetails on the revival, is that the aesthetic of the period just screams comedy. Can you put Bottom in a leisure suit and not start to giggle? Can the young maidens wear tube tops and not elicit both excitement and dismay? Alas, this production suffered from budgetary constraints, as well as other constraints inherent to working with young people in a community theatre setting - and the "sex, drugs and rock and roll" all got a fair does of taming. But the aesthetic we applied to the script worked to comic and nostalgic effect. I trimmed the script judiciously, see below PDF below if you like, and added an opening/ending framing with the actor playing Theseus (I ended up splitting Theseus/Oberon and Hippolyta/Titania for casting reasons) and a young boy (his son). In the opening of the show he enters with a small pile of vinyl and shows them to his young son. Puck then arrives to cast a spell - the man transforms into Theseus, the boy goes off with Puck to become the Changeling, and the game is on. At the end, the wedding party becomes a disco dance, which is then interrupted by Puck, who brings our Theseus, the boy and the records back to the present.