LCC’s ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’: free highbrow entertainment

Those who think the only culture to be found in Lansing is on yogurt shelves in local markets should reconsider. Lansing Community College is once again offering free theater by none other than history’s most famous bard, William Shakespeare.

“A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” directed by Mary Job, is the first of two shows in the school’s 2025 Summer Stage Under the Stars series. For decades, the popular public program has offered sophisticated performances. 

Attendees are encouraged to bring blankets or lawn chairs.  A concession stand will be available, with all proceeds benefiting LCC’s theater scholarship fund.  Picnics are allowed.

This is far from the first time LCC has staged “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” Job directed it at the school’s Black Box Theatre in 2010. 

“Shakespeare is capable of many approaches and iterations, so different productions, done well, can seem fresh,” Job said. “My take on this production is very lighthearted and not terribly traditional.”

The play works well for outdoor shows, and it provides a performance opportunity for LCC’s Shakespeare studio classes.

She and LCC theater instructor Emma Quick thought “the wide range of characters, from teenage lovers to fairies, royal couples and the mechanicals, would best suit our students,” Job said.

“A Midsummer Night’s Dream” suits auditioners who aren’t as familiar with Shakespeare. Unlike his other five-act plays, this one is full of more fantasy, music, humor and spectacle. 

“This play combines zany comedy, rhymed verse, elements of magic and magical beings,” Job said.  She explained how complicated, mature relationships are contrasted with the outsized drama of teenage love. 

“I love the irony that, ultimately, the grown-ups are as tossed about by love as the teenagers,” she said.

The cast for the roughly 20 speaking parts comprises students enrolled in LCC’s theater program, alumni of the program, other LCC students and members of the local acting community. 

“In terms of distribution, only two roles are doubled,” Job said.  “I tried to fit my degree-seeking students into the roles that would challenge them and give them the opportunity to shine.”

She finds “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” which includes an enchanted forest, befits an outdoor production because of its heavy pastoral elements and abundance of physical action.

For the amphitheater production, she’s ensuring the cast pays attention to “breath work, articulation and projection,” she said.  “Staging-wise, I use a lot of movement to tell the story visually.”

If bad weather is an issue, the show moves inside to the Dart Auditorium stage.

Some special props, including a donkey head, will add to the visuals. Chelle Peterson, another respected local theater veteran, created “marvelous costumes for the show,” Job said.       

“Shakespeare keeps me on my toes as a director, in terms of both staging and coaching the actors and how important words are,” Job said. “Good Shakespeare actors actively use the words, the poetry and the rhetorical devices to express character and situation.”

Job has an authoritative history as a director.  “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” will be the 22nd play she’s directed at LCC.  She began teaching at LCC in the late 1990s, initially in the intro to acting classes.  Her first directing gig for the college was “An Enemy of the People” during the summer theater series in 1999. 

“I’ve directed a lot of studio shows as part of our curriculum,” Job said. Those have included numerous Shakespeare productions.

She has also directed more “unconventional” plays outside of LCC, like “Indecent,” “Top Girls,” “Eurydice,” “The Dead” and “The Vibrator Play.” 

She believes directors are storytellers first and foremost. 

“We use the creative skills of actors and production staff to tell the story we see in a given script,” she said. “I hope that audiences remember me for telling stories that matter to me in a way that made those stories matter to them.”

Despite moving to Florida for the winters, which has limited her ability to teach certain LCC classes, Job is far from ending her career. 

“I have no intention of retiring from directing,” she said.  “There are more stories to tell.”