Shakespeare in the Park

A wonderfully entertaining night was had by over 100 individuals at Montana Shakespeare in the Parks performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream.

On Wednesday, June 30, with the temperature hovering around the 100-degree mark, a decision was made to move the performance inside to the Malta High School auditorium. Though still a little stuffy, it was a much-welcomed decision by both the crowd and the cast.

Anna LaBrie said, "Everything went really well. I'm really happy with the turnout we had. We were wondering how it would go with how hot it has been, but we had a great crowd tonight."

Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream is a comedy of young love, crossed-up lovers, magic potions, and a couple of fairies mixed in to screw everything up and hopefully fix everything in the end. The cast did a wonderful job of entertaining both the older crowd who could 'somewhat' understand the Shakespearean language and the younger crowd that might not understand what was said but could tell what was going on just by the actions and facial expressions of the actors.

When the play was over, Riley O'Toole, an actor in his seventh season with MSIP, thanked Anna LaBrie and the Shrew Crew for their continued support in keeping MSIP coming to Malta. He also thanked all of the crowd for their support and braving the heat to come out and see the show.

O'Toole said, "The crowd tonight was great! It was an above-average-sized crowd for Malta. Every one of them was into it right from the start."

Chelsea David, an actress in her first year with MSIP, said, "This was the best audience we've had so far, better than the crowds in Bozeman. Everybody was so responsive here. We got to do so much more intimate things tonight, and the crowd was right there with us the whole way."

MSIP is celebrating its 49th season this year. The crew will be traveling nearly 7,000 miles to 61 communities in five states to put on shows for an estimated 35,000 people.