NOTE: “Today” and “tonight” refer to Friday, August 21.
PORT ANGELES — Led by a friend, Anna Andersen took a walk in the woods.
She entered a meadow, and her friend’s voice faded out.
“A Midsummer Night’s Dream” appeared.
This was late last year, mind you, and Shakespeare’s play played out only in Andersen’s head.
She imagined it in Webster’s Woods, the art park with a meadow beside the Port Angeles Fine Arts Center.
A theater director and actor, Andersen fell in love with William Shakespeare’s art when she was an 11-year-old in Flagstaff, Ariz. Immediately after high school she moved to California, where she would study theater at Long Beach State, be cast as Kate in a production of “The Taming of the Shrew” in Los Angeles’ Griffith Park, and work with the touring Shakespeare by the Sea company.
Andersen has since moved north to help her elderly parents in Port Angeles — and joined the theater scene here, portraying Herodias in “Salome” at Peninsula College, Madge Kendal in “The Elephant Man” at the Port Angeles Community Playhouse, directing the Olympic Theatre Arts production of “Picasso at the Lapin Agile” and teaching a drama camp for youngsters through the Port Angeles Fine Arts Center.
Her idea of making “Midsummer” happen here in the park got the attention of the wider arts community. Jessica Elliott, a supporter of the fine arts center, stepped up to become program manager. Sarah Tucker, the friend who introduced Andersen to Webster’s Woods, volunteered to create costumes. The fine arts center’s board and director Robin Anderson also said yes to this new thing.
With Shakespeare’s lovers, clowns, fairies and fire sprites dancing through her mind, Andersen began assembling a cast. And even as she directed and acted in other productions in Port Angeles and Sequim, she and her small team managed to win small grants from the city of Port Angeles. Fortified, Andersen and company dived in to the bard’s story.
Tonight, at last, the “Dream” comes true.
In the meadow at Webster’s Woods, Port Angeles’ Shakespeare festival will start at 5 p.m. with a pre-show starring local youngsters in an array of the Bard’s famous scenes. Snippets of “Romeo and Juliet,” “Macbeth,” “A Comedy of Errors” and “The Tempest” are all here, performed by children and teenagers.
Then comes the main event. “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” with its love potion, its forest frolic and its amateur wedding entertainers, will tumble across the grass, all before the audience seated in lawn chairs and on blankets.
“The best part about this is being in the space. It’s just perfect,” said Corrina Wright, who portrays Puck, the sprite with the potion.
“A Midsummer Night’s Dream” is no tough Shakespeare assignment, added Mark Valentine, who plays the clown Nick Bottom.
“He is so energetic. He is so uninformed … You can’t fault him, because he’s got a great heart,” he said of his character.
“’Midsummer’ is a family play in every sense,” added Valentine. “It’s romance, it’s comedy,” and if you happen to daydream a bit in this park setting, no problem. You can come right back in.
“We have a brilliant cast. I love them all,” proclaimed Kristin Kirkman, 16. She plays the powerful Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons. Beside her are Jonas Brown as Theseus the Duke; Ron Graham as Oberon, king of the fairies; and Angela Poynter-Lemaster as the queen Titania. Sammy Weinert and Milo Atwater are Hermia and Lysander, lovers planning to elope.
“Midsummer’s” fairies and sprites include tweens and teens: Charlotte Hertel, Magnolia and Eden Silcox, Pluma Haarstad, Anna Lester, Sage Hunter and Violet and Fern Knobel are among those with sewn flames or wings.
Sean Peck-Collier plays Peter Quince, assembler of the Rude Mechanicals, a band of amateur actors including Grace Sanwald as Robin Starveling, Charles Krause as Francis Flute, Jeffrey Mordecai-Smith as Snug and Ben Catterson as Snout.
For Valentine, who’s a schoolteacher when not appearing in local theater productions, doing Shakespeare outside is good, natural fun.
“We are hoping to start a Port Angeles summer tradition,” he said.
Yet the Port Angeles Fine Arts Center is in the midst of a transition. Funded largely by benefit events, donations and art sales, it also receives some support from the city of Port Angeles. That’s being phased out over the next three years, so the arts center’s board of directors will be looking into other ways to sustain it.
Webster’s Woods aren’t going anywhere, however. Andersen envisions a production of Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” next year, as well as workshops for adults and youngsters wanting to explore the plays and sonnets.
“We’ll go forward,” said Andersen, adding she is “absolutely committed” to bringing live Shakespeare to Port Angeles.
“We are prepared to seek multiple sources of funding as well,” through grants and fundraisers, said the director.
So while the financial future is uncertain, Andersen and company don’t seem deterred.
“A Midsummer Night’s Dream” addresses this, wouldn’t you know.
“The course of true love,” Lysander says, “never did run smooth.”
