Mundelein​ Theatre is putting a modern twist on one of William Shakespeare’s most enduring and endearing comedies, A Midsummer Night’s Dream.  The play is set in the day room of a psychiatric hospital.​ The story and language remain the same, portraying the events surrounding the marriage of Theseus and Hippolyta.  These include the adventures of four young Athenian lovers and a group of mechanicals who are controlled and manipulated by the fairies who inhabit the forest in which most of the play is set.

The play will be presented in the Mundelein High School Auditorium on February 2, 3 and 4 at 7 p.m. An after-school matinee is also set for February 3 at 3:45 p.m., which is free for MHS students. Tickets are a recommended donation of $5 for students and seniors and $7 for adults. Since the production will be staged on a 200-seat onstage thrust configuration, ti​cket reservations are recommended, and are available ​here. Tickets can also be purchased at the door 30 minutes prior to each performance. 

“It is not unusual to take Shakespeare’s plays out of their original settings and place them in different eras and time periods,” said Jonathan Meier, the play’s director. “I think placing the play in a modern day hospital setting gives the play additional poignancy.” The concept has the patients at the hospital performing the play after most of the staff of the hospital has gone home for the evening.  “The students took the characteristics that they developed when analyzing their Midsummer characters, and used that information to create their hospital characters. It was a really enlightening process.”