William Shakespeare is considered the greatest writer of the English language.
During his day, he was merely a well-regarded poet and playwright. It wasn’t until the nineteenth century that he became so widely revered. Today, there are 38 surviving plays attributed to Shakespeare—the early ones are considered histories and comedies, such as A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and those penned in the latter part of his life were tragedies, including Hamlet and MacBeth, and romances such as The Tempest. His plays have been widely translated throughout the world and are continuously performed, more than any other playwright’s works.

Why was he called The Bard?
A bard was one of a class of poets and scholars of medieval and early modern Ireland, Scotland, Wales and Cornwall. The term came to equate with a notable or famous poet, author, narrator or singer. With time, Shakespeare became more than a bard, he became known as The Bard.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream
It is one of William Shakespeare’s most popular plays, written, scholars believe, in 1595 or 1596 as part of a wedding celebration. First performed at Court on January 1, 1604, Dream was not acted in its entirety until the 1840s. It has been called a romantic comedy, a farce and a fantasy, and features three interconnected plotlines, all centered on the marriage of Theseus, the Duke of Athens, and the Amazonian Queen Hippolyta.

Setting — Ancient Greece yet includes elements of Renaissance England.
Place — Athens and the forest outside its walls.
Time — Midsummer Eve (June 23), the celebration of the beginning of summer.
In Elizabethan times, Midsummer was also associated with magic and the spirits aloft at night. Fairies are part of the Elizabethan folk culture and most people, particularly the lower social classes, believed they really did exist.
Theme — Reflects the challenges of love, and the relationships between fantasy and reality, between experience and the environment.
Main Characters:
Puck, the Hobgoblin who serves the King of the Fairies
Oberon and Titania, King and Queen of the Fairies
Lysander & Hermia and Demetrius & Helena, the young lovers
The Magic Potion — Love-in-Idleness Juice

Famous Dream Quotes
“Lord, what fools these mortals be.” Puck
“Love looks not with the eyes but with the mind.” Helena
“Swift as a shadow.” Lysander
“The course of true love never did run smooth.” Lysander to Hermia
“We should be woo'd and were not made to woo.” Helena

Dream Words
Shakespearean scholars claim that The Bard invented at least 1,700 words in writing his plays, sonnets, and long poems. In A Midsummer Night's Dream those words include: candle holder, bedroom, moonbeam, swagger, eyeball, batty, mimic, flowery, admirable, and critical. Of Shakespeare’s 38 plays, only Love's Labour's Lost has more rhyming lines than A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Interpretations
A Midsummer Night’s Dream has been re-interpreted as an opera, ballet, all-children’s production and a contemporary “rave.” There have been countless film and television productions, the most notable include (A Midsummer Night’s Dream serves as the title unless otherwise listed):

1909 Silent film starring Walter Ackerman, directed by Charles Kent and J. Stuart Blackton.
1935  Featuring James Cagney, Joe E. Brown, Dick Powell, Mickey Rooney and Olivia de Havilland in her first film role, directed by William Dieterle and Max Reinhardt.
1947 Black and white version on British Television, directed by I. Orr-Ewing.
1959 Sen noci svatojanske, filmed in Czechoslovakia.
1967 A ballet version with Felix Mendelssohn's music starring Suzanne Farrell and Edward Villella,featuring the New York City Ballet, directed by George Ballanchine and Dan Eriksen.
1968 A stellar production of the the Royal Shakespeare Company featuring Diana Rigg, David Warner, Ian Richardson, Judi Dench, Ian Holm, and Helen Mirren, directed by Peter Hall.
1970 One of the most influential Shakespeare productions of the 20th Century directed by Peter Brook with the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon.
1971 Peter Brook’s production moves to Broadway.
1981 Benjamin Britten's opera version, co-librettist Peter Pears, TVS TV production.
1981 Starring Helen Mirren, directed by Elijah Moshinsky,a BBC TV production.
1982 Starring Christine Baranski, Peter Cook and William Hurt, directed by Emile Ardolino for TV.
1996 The Royal Shakespeare Company’s touring production is re-blocked for a sound stage and filming, creative adaptation and direction by Adrian Noble.
1999 Transported to turn-of the-century Tuscany starring Kevin Kline, Michelle Pfeiffer, Calista Flockhart, Rupert Everett, Stanley Tucci, and Christian Bale, directed by Michael Hoffman.
2001 Film performed by children and directed by Christine Edzard.
2004  A Midsummer Night’s Rave, re-imagined by the rave culture directed by Gil Bates Jr.
2005 ShakespeaRe-Told, a modern retelling of four Shakespeare stories including A Midsummer Night's Dream, TV version on BBC.
2005 Benjamin Britten's opera re-interpreted by Canadian music director Robert Carsen and staged for film at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, directed François Roussillon.
2006 Tim Supple’s re-imagined production opens at the IGNCA in New Delhi. The Company travels to England to play the Complete Works Festival at the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon.           
2007 The Indian Dream plays The Roundhouse in London and in the Fall begins a tour of the UK.
2008 The Indian Dream begins a world tour; premiering in San Francisco at the Curran Theatre on May 6.

For a synopsis of the show, click here.

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