Playwright Ken Ludwig has taken Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and combined it with MTV's reality show "Jersey Shore." The result is titled "Ken Ludwig's Midsummer/Jersey." It opens at Interlochen with students playing all the parts and Ludwig worked on the development of the script during rehearsals.
Instead of Elizabethan gowns and corsets, the women wear skin-tight, leopard-skin leggings and furry vests. They guys wear tight t-shirts, leather jackets and jeans. And there’s an awful lot of gum-chewing. In Ludwig’s play, the Duke of Athens is New Jersey Governor Athens. His wife is Hippolyta Ginsberg.
“Midsummer/Jersey” is pretty faithful to Shakespeare’s play. In Shakespeare’s play, Demetrius and Lysander make their romantic desires known to the Duke of Athens. In Ludwig’s play, Dennis and Lyle argue to New Jersey’s Governor Athens. And the Rude Mechanicals – the witless menials who stumble through the play-within-a-play – are female hairdressers in Ken Ludwig’s comedy.
“Ken Ludwig’s Midsummer/Jersey” runs Friday, July 27 - Wednesday, August 1.
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