Lear deBessonet, founder of the Public Theater’s Public Works program and resident director, brings her eclectic theatrical vision of A Midsummer Night's Dream to the 2017 season of Shakespeare in the Park at Delacorte Theater in Central Park. Following the director’s interpretation of the fairies and the forest as ancient entities, Rockwell Group took design cues from the very location of the play itself: the trees of Central Park, but aged hundreds of years.
An aged forest rooted in fantastical realism
The play begins in the Court, with curving masonry walls blocking the forest beyond. The gates turn to the back of the stage, revealing a cluster of trees 76 feet wide and 25 feet tall.
Over 4,500 silk flowers in hues of pink, violet, red and yellow create a magical setting.
During the wedding, the palace walls covered in blankets of peonies and bougainvillea rotate into view as a 70-foot tall festoon of lanterns rises into the night sky.
