Music reminiscent of a medieval tavern or Lord of the Rings film drifted across the auditorium as chattering theatergoers filed in to see loved ones in Jefferson High’s production of the Shakespeare classic A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Drama teacher Mike Hesford and his players dedicated this year’s show to the performers of the Class of 2020, which planned to present the same play before COVID-19 brought life to a halt. Hesford recalls printing out the posters and looking forward to rehearsal – until the next day, when the school shut its doors.
Standing on stage before the opening performance last Thursday, Hesford read out the names of the 2020 cast and crew in a strange roll call of dashed dreams. After a moment of somber reflection, the show’s director shouted “Shakespeare, yeah!”, plunging the crowd into a world of fairies and mule-headed men.
Unlike many other schools, where theater is an after-school activity, Jefferson High’s drama students attend a block class each morning. One result is that the theater program is open to students who in other schools would’ve had a conflict due to sports commitments.
“Every type of kid is on stage,” Hesford says. “Where else could you get jocks on stage?”
Hesford seems to have gained his students’ trust: they respect his perspective as director and admire him as a collaborator. Hesford doesn’t allow for any pretense of this being “just a high school show.” He takes his kids seriously, which encourages them to take the endeavor seriously as well.
“With how passionate he is and how he directs, and how he casts, how he chooses a play, he knows that we’re capable of being greater than what most high school shows are,” said senior Caleb Morris, who played Bottom in last weekend’s show.
“I always tell them ‘Do the work, trust your work, and trust each other,’” Hesford said in an interview before the show on opening night.
His students understood the faith they’ve been given, even if it gets a little overwhelming at times. “I’m not gonna lie, a little irritating, because he’s always like, I don’t know, just always pushing us,” said senior Ryian Eveland, who played the fairy queen, Titania. “But then you take a step back and it’s kind of realizing that he cares this much, and doesn’t let us just sit back and just be ‘Oh, whatever’ with our lines.”
The result was a sturdy, professional show. When first night jitters cause actors to forget lines, they recover quickly enough that all but your most avid Shakespeare fan hardly notices.
“I wish people knew how much work went into this,” Hesford said.
The hard work paid off. The audience roared at the players’ stage performance to the duke. With the cast members sitting level with the audience there was suddenly a sense that we were all a part of the play, briefly inhabiting Shakespeare’s dream world.
It felt like a rare and new experience, with a play that’s been done thousands of times before.
Emme Rosenbaum would have played Hermia had the pandemic not shut down school in 2020. Her disappointment had long since faded and tonight she felt nothing but pride for her younger sister Aubrey, who got the chance to play the very same part.
“It was a bummer that we weren’t able to do it,” she said, after enjoying her sister’s performance. “But yeah, it’s kind of cool now to think maybe that was what was meant to be…It’s a very full circle moment.”
