Arts University Bournemouth and Butterfly present A MIDZOOMER NIGHT’S DREAM

Using our extensive knowledge and experience of working with Shakespeare’s text and how to perform it effectively, truthfully and authentically, as well as our own experience of creating online productions, Butterfly have been working with the amazing students and staff from Arts University Bournemouth to create an online production of Shakespeare’s famous comedy A Midsummer Night’s dream, directed by us and performed by the students.We are therefore delighted to present:A MIDZOOMER NIGHT’S DREAM“London, at a time in the not too distant future. Draconian laws like no shouting at protests, no breaking quarantine and even the death penalty have become the norm. The patriarchy’s rules are unrelenting. Young people are divided on any issue they can tik tok about, the environment, veganism, toxic masculinity. Everyone is existing in an online world of Zoom, true love and connection is nowhere to be seen…As a distraction from the chaos, the Prime Minister, Theseus, is arranging his wedding to wealthy young aristocrat Hippolyta. Nearby a group of key workers, once actors now delivery drivers and care home workers, rehearse a play to be performed at the wedding, hoping for a big break. A group of young lovers break quarantine and flee illegally to the woods and enter, unbeknownst to them, into the world of the fairies, whose long and bitter war is causing all the turmoil in the human world.Can any of them be reconciled? Can beauty and vulnerability be allowed to flourish in both worlds as everyone chooses love? This current and relevant retelling sees Shakespeare’s famous comedy brought to life online, featuring government cronyism, Instagram influential young lovers, key worker mechanicals and love, love, love!”