A ‘Midsummer Night’ under the stars at Selby Gardens

There’s something really special, Jonathan Epstein said, about Shakespeare performed outdoors.

“The thing about doing Shakespeare outdoors is that the emotions can be bigger,” he said. “Outdoors, it feels as you’re never too big.”

Epstein teaches acting at the FSU/Asolo Conservatory for Actor Training in Sarasota, and he’s the conservatory’s go-to Shakespeare guy. He’s directing the conservatory’s upcoming production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” It opens Tuesday at the Marie Selby Botanical Gardens in Sarasota.

It’s the first time the FSU/Asolo Conservatory has performed outdoor Shakespeare, and the first time Selby Gardens has hosted an event like this one.

Epstein is hoping it will be popular enough that Shakespeare at Selby becomes an annual event. A production of “Much Ado About Nothing” is already planned for next year.

The “stage” area for this production is huge, about 90 feet from one side to another. There’s a small lake right behind the main performance area, and one actor has to deliver a speech from that island. The audience will be about 150 feet away, so the actor will have to project in a way that modern performers seldom do these days.

It’s a distinctive kind of experience for the audience, too, Epstein said.

“The audience is participating in a different way,” he said. “When it’s outdoors, you can live a play. It’s something you can’t get from a movie, something you can’t get from an indoor performance. It’s part carnival and part church, and part storytelling and part Shakespeare.”

“A Midsummer Night’s Dream” is the ideal play to kick off what may become a new outdoor Shakespeare series, Epstein said. It’s fun and it’s familiar, with interweaving stories that are easy to follow even for people who aren’t accustomed to Shakespeare language. And because much of the action takes place in a forest, it’s particularly well suited for an outdoor performance.

The confluence of seemingly disparate stories (despite what Shakespeare expert Epstein contends) can make the play a bit hard to follow for the uninitiated. There’s essentially a love triangle (Hermia loves Lysander, but she’s betrothed to Demetrius), a wedding between Duke Theseus and Queen Hippolyta, and an amateur acting troupe planning to perform at the king’s wedding. Everybody ends up in a forest, which by chance is inhabited by a group of fairies, most notably the mischievous Puck, who causes all kinds of mayhem.

But the stories are fairly straightforward if you pay attention, and Epstein said that makes “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” the ideal play for novices who want to acquire a little Shakespeareance. The magical and comedic elements make it a great first Shakespeare play.

“It’s the best Shakespeare play for children,” Epstein said.

Except for one matinee, the show is scheduled to start at 8 p.m., right around sunset. The production’s lighting is designed to heighten the sense of arboreal magic.

The actors are students, but they’re students at one of the best graduate theater programs in the country, and they’re up to the challenges of Shakespeare, Epstein said.

“Greg Leaming (the conservatory’s director) likes to say that when you see these students, you’re looking at the future of American theater,” Epstein said. “And I think that’s absolutely true. There’s something exciting about seeing actors and being able to say that you saw them when they were just starting out.”

Details: April 11-29, Marie Selby Botanical Gardens, 900 S. Palm Ave., Sarasota. 8 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday, 10:30 a.m. Sunday, April 23. $27 general, $21.50 military, $13.50 students under age 25. 941-351-8000, asolorep.org.

This story was originally published April 7, 2017 at 5:16 PM with the headline "A ‘Midsummer Night’ under the stars at Selby Gardens."