Culture & Community | Education & Youth | Elm Shakespeare Company | Arts & Culture | Theater | New Haven Academy
Top: Austen Fay as Oberon and Tomitsela Engel-Halfkenny as Titania. Bottom: Adrian Guzman as Peter Quince. Charles Jeffery as Nick Bottom, and Solimar Quintanilla as Snug. Lucy Gellman Photos.
Solimar Quintanilla never planned to be in the winter play, but somebody needed to play Snug and no one else was going to do it. Austen Fay hates being onstage, but stepped in for Oberon because he didn’t want to see the show collapse. Olivia Tapia Ko wasn't sure what to expect her first year at a new school, until she found her people backstage.
This month, all of them are part of a tight and miraculous A Midsummer Night's Dream, running at New Haven Academy (NHA) through Dec. 7. A collaboration between Elm Shakespeare Company and NHA's Legacy Studios, the play transports its audience to the fairy realm, while holding onto something of New Haven in the process. It is set in the Harlem Renaissance, a choice directors made with a diverse cast in mind.
It will have an encore performance as part of Elm Shakespeare Company's second annual Youth Festival, scheduled for Dec. 13 and 14 at Naugatuck Valley Community College in Waterbury. Tickets and more information are available here for the New Haven show and here for the performance in Waterbury.
Dehja Kelson, Gabriella Osborn, and Jaileen Sowell.
"We wanted to give the kids something that they could really connect to in a tangible way," said director Ty Scurry, a graduate of Wilbur Cross High School who has gone on to build drama programs at both James Hillhouse High School and New Haven Academy. "It kind of fit within the theme that we had this year ... characters have these big wants, these big needs, and it just fit. I also didn't want to go too heavy, too soon. It's lighter. The mechanicals are hilarious. It gives us the drama and the humor."
That's at the core of the play itself, which Scurry has abridged with the help of co-director and Elm Shakespeare’s Liz Daingerfield. Written in the late 16th century, A Midsummer Night’s Dream follows Theseus, Duke of Athens (Gabriella Osborn, who also plays Peaseblossom), on the eve of his marriage to Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons (Dehja Kelson). The wedding is big news: a cast of "mechanicals" or craftsmen (Adrian Guzman, Charles Jeffery, Joseph Pallo, Solimar Quintanilla and Lily Gonzalez) prepares to delight them with depictions of Ovid's lovers Pyramus and Thisbe on their wedding night.
As they rehearse in the woods—depicted here by an economical, blue-white neon sign—Shaespeare does his thing and sews discord through several different and intersecting storylines. Egeus (Joaquin Tobin) doesn’t like that Lysander (Michelle Cochran) is in love with his daughter Hermia (Jaileen Sowell). He’d prefer she be with Demetrius (a winning and punchy Christopher Samuels), who the lovely Helena (Olivia Tapia Ko) has the unrequited hots for. When they all end up in the woods—which is where the fairies live, because of course it is—magic and mischief ensues. Nowhere is this clearer than in the actions of the Fairy Queen Titania (Tomitsela Engel-Halfkenny), her King Oberon (Austen Fay) and his naughty servant Puck (Sora Matta).
Top: Tomitsela Engel-Halfkenny. Bottom: Oliver Reymond as Flute.
At New Haven Academy, the play comes alive with a 1920s Harlem kind of twist, with brassy interludes and costumes that range from drape suits, feathered headpieces and Art Deco-y beaded dresses to thick wool skirts and overalls. As characters enter over music—a nod to Kelson, who is fully in it from the moment she walks onstage—they transport an audience to another universe, where enchantment lives within the art that characters create. The set, repurposed from previous performances at the school, is the perfect container: painted brick walls and ionic columns give characters a sense of space, while the neon sign cues viewers into the forested setting.
As the play rolls forward, several students show off a mastery of Shakespeare's text that makes the work feel both personable and surprising (it has been a minute since NHA transported the audience into another realm, instead of digging deep on hard social issues). From the moment they enter as Titania, Engel-Halfkenny delivers, letting the grandeur and drama of the role come with her. On stage, they glide rather than walk, as if levitation isn’t out of the question. Every phrase lands with force, commanding the audience’s full attention.
Around them, a whole kingdom comes alive: Fay rises to the challenge as Oberon, reluctantly shedding his backstage expertise (he is Scurry’s go-to stage manager) for lines that he delivers with affect and precision. As Nick Bottom, who becomes something of the ass that he is (a pair of floppy donkey ears goes a long way), Jeffery shines, with a sense of comedic timing that works. Adrian Guzman makes a refreshing Peter Quince, with precision and quirk that feels right for the role.
Olivia Tapia Ko (center) as Helena with Christopher Samuels as Demetrius and Michelle Cochran as Lysander.
But it is a breakout performance from Tapia Ko, who has done the play before as Lysander,, that may be the most fun to watch. In the play, Puck’s meddling makes both Demetrius and Lysander fall in love with Helena—who both have previously placed her in the friend zone. In turn, she thinks that they are making fun of her.
Tapia Ko gets it: she throws herself to the floor, scrunches her mouth, goes wide-eyed with panic and searches the audience for relief. In turn, Helena shoulders a surprisingly heavy weight in this show, taking some of the pressure off classmates who are still puzzling over the text.
“I get to help her laugh and cry, and when she finally gets the guy, I’m like, ‘That’s my girl! I did that!’” Tapia Ko she said before rehearsal earlier this week. “Friendship and helping each other is really a theme that I get out of Midsummer.”
"A lot of kids will think, 'I'm not smart enough for this,' or 'this language is too hard,'" said Daingerfield, who has worked in both education and communications and marketing for Elm Shakespeare. "But these sentiments are universal."
Top: Olivia Tapia Ko: "When she finally gets the guy, I’m like, ‘That’s my girl! I did that!’”
At the school, which rises off Orange Street with no hint of the universes waiting inside, the magic has unfolded not only onstage, but also backstage In an interview before rehearsal Monday, several students praised the cast and crew for pulling off the show, a kind of holiday miracle that required not only time and dedication but a deep sense of family.
“We are a big family!” Jeffery said. “We support each other very closely. I mean, we spend every second with each other.”
“We love and care for each other,” Engel-Halfkenny added. “We almost never get to do, like, happy shows. And it’s so refreshing, and so comforting. Having each other and having all of us be so close, and being able to do this kind of lighthearted show, just feels really good.”
Fay, a junior who plays Oberon, has lived that in real time. Under Scurry’s direction, he’s used to working as the stage manager—a role he loves and excels at (“he’s the leader of our crew,” Jeffery cut in). But when the play suddenly found itself without an Oberon, Scurry encouraged him to jump into the role. He was off book in weeks.
“I wouldn’t turn down a role because it’s scary,” he said. “I’m not an actor. It’s a new thing for me. I have stage fright, and I’m not a stage person. If I was, I would be acting. But I like putting in the effort and I didn’t say no to this because I wanted the show to happen.”
That was also true for Quintanilla, a sophomore who had planned to take a break after the fall performance of The Outsiders earlier this year. Originally, she offered to play Snug for a single night when the character—then played by Matta—couldn’t make it. “I thought, I’d do it ‘cause I like to help out my family,” she said. Then Matta was recast as Puck. Quintanilla didn’t want to let the cast down, so she stayed in the role.
For others. It’s a joyful and communal return to a work that they love. Jeffery, who is now a senior, first encountered the play as a fifth grader at Mauro-Sheridan Interdistrict Magnet School. Back then, he idolized Nick Bottom because it was his older brother in the role. Fourteen Shakespeare shows later—he is a member of Elm Shakespeare’s Teen Troupe—he’s finally in the role.
“I’ve learned that the importance of learning Shakespeare is in the depth of his writing, in the intricacies of his humor,” he said, adding that playing Bottom has reminded him to lighten up. “A lot of his writing still applies today. You can read these jokes as if they’re jokes made today. And I think that really makes Shakespeare interesting.
“It makes me very happy doing Shakespeare,” added Tapia Ko, who came in knowing Helena’s lines because she played Lysander last year. “This was a nice show for me to sort of ease into NHA … I’m like my own scene partner, which is kind of fun.”
“I just think, like, who knows if I would like Shakespeare as a person, but I think it’s really impressive that we refer to Shakespeare as its own genre,” she added. “It’s just this one guy that wrote a bunch of stuff.”
A Midsummer Night’s Dream runs Dec. 5 through 7 at New Haven Academy and Dec. 13 at Naugatuck Valley Community College. Tickets and more information are available here for the New Haven show and here for the performance in Waterbury. The Legacy Studios continues with Once On This Island April 3-5, 2025.