Shakespeare
Well, we debated, but not nearly as long as we’d already done to no avail. Seeing no real alternative, with tremblings, we cast our lot and our budget with Lance and invited him to reveal this non-negotiable plan of his. Before long, we convened the first (and likely only-ever) joint conclave of the East Campus/Senior House governing Committees. Where Lance laid it on us:
  1. We were now irretrievably committed to mounting a full, costumed outdoor performance of Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream in the L-shaped courtyard between Senior House and the President’s House.
  2. Much of the action was to take place in the courtyard itself, among the audience, who would occupy folding chairs. Palace scenes would mostly happen on the Senior House balconies; the President’s wall would double as Fairyland. The halls of Senior House and the President’s back yard would be our backstage.
  3. This would be a reading performance: nobody would have to memorize lines.
  4. Lance would allocate parts at random, with no right of appeal nor, one supposes, demurrer. Nobody with previous stage experience would be eligible for a speaking part.
  5. There would be no rehearsals. Lance would walk each actor individually through his entrances and exits. The cast would meet for the first time at the one and only performance.
  6. We’d borrow costumes from Dramashop. Except for the inexpensive paperback script from which each of us would read, the munificent budgets of the sponsoring organizations (us and the Senior Housers) would be combined and spent on very nice cookies and punch for audience and cast to share afterward.
A few misgiving voices rose to challenge our commitment. Had they been able to propose any concrete alternative, they might have prevailed. As it was, they subsided, and we set to work with doubting hearts to make the best of our Centennial obligation.

The randomness of Lance’s casting remains in historical doubt, but nobody then or now seems to want to point any fingers. The central rôle of Puck went to Mary, the daughter of Dean of Students John T. Rule. I’m morally certain she had prior stage experience, but she delivered a performance that I remember as treading the line between fetching and dazzling—what I could see of it, from my usual position in the “wings.” And her central position in the cast guaranteed that the prominent Rule family would attend in force.

In the same pulsating vein, three of the four named Fairies were President Jay and Kay Stratton’s daughters, Cathy, Cary, and Laurie. If it hadn’t already been a foregone conclusion that the Strattons would come to this activity in their back yard, this casting decision surely applied the stamp of certainty.

Me, I drew a genuine bit part, that of Egeus, father to Hermia. Normally listed second only to Duke Theseus in lists of dramatis personae (because he enters early), but granted by the Bard only two short and rather querulous scenes. My costume featured a marvelous, heavy, ankle-length wool cape, which I was just ham enough to swirl about in my sparse moments on stage.
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