A Midsummer Night's Dream Director's Playbook - Softcover

This book, in the Shakespeare Playbook Series, is an elaborate workbook for directors, with separate sections for Director responsibilities, Auditions, exits and entrances of every actor in every scene, summary plot, every part of every scene with its own two-page spread of lots of space for indicating where on stage the sets should be placed, notes, sketches and ideas of how that scene should look, along with a key line for easy reference. And the rest of the book is devoted to separate sections for the Producer, including a sample budget, how to design a playbill that can serve as a fundraiser for advertising as well as an attractive souvenir for playgoers/parents, arranging theater, ushers, box office, etc., the Pre-Production activities often by independent Set Designer and Costumer/Wardrobe, the responsibilities of the Stage Manager in coordinating sets, actors, lighting, sound, curtain, photography or video, etc., the duties of an assistant director in keeping track of details, scheduling from the inception of the project and assurance that the budget looks good, right up to the wrap party. This Director's Playbook Package comes with access to downloadable customized scripts for the major players, their lines highlighted — print them out in large type. Also available are reading copies of the play (the same script plus glossary) at http://www.createspace.com/3893770 for $6.95. The list of Playbooks available: Hamlet (www.createspace.com/3742231) Merchant of Venice (www.createspace.com/3862570) Taming of the Shrew (www.createspace.com/3938142) Twelfth Night (www.createspace.com/3894336) Romeo and Juliet (www.createspace.com/3891241) A Midsummer Night's Dream (www.createspace.com/3893774) Much Ado About Nothing (www.createspace.com/3965392) Macbeth (www.createspace.com/3967549) Othello (www.createspace.com/3963830) As You Like It (www.createspace.com/3940714) Richard III (www.createspace.com/3962607) Henry V (www.createspace.com/3969195)

William Shakespeare, the third of eight children, was born on April 23, 1564 in the English market town of Stratford-upon-Avon. His father became the mayor of Stratford in 1568 and worked as a glovemaker and a moneylender. Four years after leaving school at approxi-mately the age of fourteen, Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway in November of 1582; their first child Susan-nah was born in May of the following year. Two years later, Anne gave birth to twins, Hamnet and Judith. Between 1585 and 1592, a period called “the lost years,” there is almost no evidence about Shakespeare’s life, nor is there any solid evidence about how or why he made his way to London to become a dramatist. By 1592, however, Shake-speare’s reputation as a playwright and poet had begun to grow. In 1594, he helped found a new theater company, the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, and be-came the company’s dramatist. Shakespeare’s success increased, and by 1598, the year he registered The Merchant of Venice, he had already purchased one of the biggest residences in Stratford. Some of Shakespeare’s richest dramatic work was written after the founding of the Globe Theater by the Lord Chamberlain’s Men in 1599, including Julius Caesar, Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth. After 1611, Shakespeare largely retired from the theater to spend more time in Stratford. He died in 1616 on his birthday, April 23, when he was fifty-two years old.