A Midsummer Night's Dream

Plan your perfect summer and we'll tell you which character you are in A Midsummer Night's Dream.

"Nowhere does Shakespeare attend more to theatrical enterprise and potential than in A Midsummer Night's Dream," writes Michele Osherow, Folger Theatre's resident dramaturg. "It makes the play irresistible to those who practice theatre and to those who crave its incomparable pleasures." Read more in this playbill excerpt from Folger Theatre's new production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream," onstage through August 28 as part of "The Playhouse" at the National Building Museum.

Austin Tichenor explores small-cast Shakespeare and the artistic possibilities of a few performers playing multiple roles.

This summer, visitors to The Playhouse at the National Building Museum can enjoy an immersive installation based on a beautiful book in the Folger collection, Joanna Robson’s "A Knavish Lad." The book visually (and wordlessly) narrates "A Midsummer Night’s Dream" in 16 vignettes, four of which are reproduced on a human scale for the installation. 

For each of these famous quotes from "A Midsummer Night's Dream," can you fill in the blank with the missing word?

Love-in-idleness, a flower also called pansy or heartsease, plays an important role in Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream," as Marissa Nicosia explores.

Jacob Ming-Trent shares a favorite moment from his Shakespeare in the Park performance as Falstaff in "Merry Wives," which premieres on PBS's Great Performances May 20.

Did you know that the Beatles once performed the “Pyramus and Thisbe” scene from Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night’s Dream"? Although they mainly stick to Shakespeare’s script, the moments when they play with the text stand out.

This excerpt from Leonard Barkan's new book "Reading Shakespeare Reading Me" explores Bottom's awakening and recollection of his enchantment as a donkey in "A Midsummer Night's Dream."

The Folger has some really fantastic Bottoms. Seriously! Just look at these Bottoms!

In Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, much of the comedic conflict derives from the application of the nectar of a magic flower. Under its influence, the queen of the fairies (Titania) becomes enamored of a donkey, and, through a bit…

Welcome to our new Shakespeare and Greek Myths series. We're starting off with Theseus and Hippolyta--figures who are not only referred to in the plays, but are also fully formed characters in two of them: A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Two Noble Kinsmen. But who are they and what are their backstories?