The Weidner presents world-class Shakespeare at any price

The Weidner Center will welcome The Acting Company's national touring production of William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream to Green Bay on Feb. 3, bringing with it a coming-of-age story filled with mistaken identities, romantic entanglements, and comical transformations.

“You kind of get a bit of everything,” said Madeleine Barker, who plays Hermia and Snout in the show. “There’s fighting. We get fantasy. We have action. We have comedy. It really tailors to a lot of different appeals.”

The show is also packed with comedy — both written and physical.

“The writing is really good,” Barker said. “It’s funny on the page and the language allows for a ton of physical comedy on top of the really funny language and we really took advantage of that… I think people always need a way to laugh, and this show really does it.”

But one thing The Acting Company’s production has that many don’t? A small cast of actors all playing multiple characters throughout the show.

“One of the ways in which this show is going to be different is that you see a ton of double casting,” Barker said “I don’t just play Hermia, I also play Snout, who is one of the Mechanicals. Everyone is playing multiple roles, so you get to see one moment we have Lysander as a lover and then the next we’re seeing him play Flute. It makes it really fun and athletic and so the audience gets to be taken on this wild ride of seeing the actors play a bunch of different roles. We have a smaller cast so that we can allow for that double casting… I think the double casting will stand out, and that’s what makes it really fun for the actors is that we get to play all these really different parts. Getting to see people transform from one person to the next person pretty immediately is kind of exciting and different.”

This show will be the first Pay What You May performance at the Weidner — a new ticketing model where guests can decide their own ticket price.

“I think that this play is speaking to every person out there…” Barker said. “I love that it’s Pay What You May at the theater. I think sometimes theater can feel really inaccessible and only for certain groups of people, but this show is meant to appeal to everyone and it really is a good time. You’re going to laugh. You’re going to turn to your neighbor and smile and be like ‘What the heck is happening?’ in the best way and I think we all need that right now. We’re living in pretty wild times and, as an actor, it’s a gift to be in a space where everyone gets to laugh for a little bit in community and that we can all be here together, in community, laughing and having a good time and also seeing something special.”

Tickets for A Midsummer Night's Dream are on-sale now exclusively at weidnercenter.com, in-person at The Weidner Ticket Office or by calling (920) 465-2800.