Year after year, Rochester Memorial School students have delighted their audiences with their annual Shakespeare productions. This year’s presentation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, like the many RMS Shakespeare plays before it, is certain to have the crowds rolling enough to make the old bard himself proud.
On Tuesday, April 25, the stage was set for a dress rehearsal as students transformed themselves into their characters before the attentive eyes of their director Danni Kleiman. Kleiman has directed the annual RMS Shakespeare play for 31 years, and, sadly for us but perhaps a little more fortunate for her, Kleiman will retire as a teacher from RMS and pass the theatrical torch to someone else, who has yet to be determined.
“It’s a lot of hard work, and it’s a lot of fun, and it’s well worth it. I have enjoyed it,” said Kleiman. “I think theater is magical for a lot of kids.”
The play, a comedy, rallies around the marriage of Theseus, Duke of Athens, and Hippolyta, who was once the queen of the Amazons. It’s got a little of everything Shakespearian – comedy, tragedy, love, unrequited love, forbidden love, beautiful fairies, mischievous elves, and, of course, magic.
“I started with this play, and I wanted to end with it,” said Kleiman.
RMS’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream is Friday, May 5, at 7:00 pm in the Rochester Memorial School cafetorium.
The play stars Jacob Maxwell as Theseus, Brooke Seim as Hippolyta, Josephine Eleniefsky as Hermia, Jaffrey Radek as Lysander, Aidan Silk as Demetrius, Jessica Beaulieu as Helena, and Storm Lanzoni as Puck.
By Jean Perry
