This year at the Owatonna High School, aspiring actors put their talent to work. Final auditions are done, the cast is set and now they will practice until they make the play come alive on Nov. 14, 15, and 16 at 7 p.m. and Nov. 17 at 1:30 p.m. in the auditorium. The play is called A Midsummer Night’s Dream and will be directed by Mr. Erik Eitrheim.

Tickets available at www.showtix4u.com or at the door 1 hour before the show. Tickets are$ 5 for students and $7  for adults, activity passes are also accepted. When asked about auditions, Katherine Speiker said, “I was nervous for a little bit, but then when I got going it was better and when I saw other people auditioning I was more comfortable.”  In the play there are many individual stories webbed within the overall plot of the play. “The idea that it has so many people in it and that it spreads the action amongst so many different actors. It’s important for me to try and get as many students involved in our shows production,” says Mr. Eitrheim. Since A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a Shakespearean play, the students of the OHS have to transition between the languages of today to the language of the Renaissance period.

The cast practices every day after school from 2:45 to 7:00. “A lot of what you don’t see is a lot of character development. We go through so many different ways of doing a scene and doing our characters,” said Mady Vieths. Many of the costumes this year are modeled after steam-punk, a mix between the natural world and mechanical world. There is a lot of gold, brown, bronze, and stripes when it comes to steam punk. The cast is split into two groups, there are the humans and the fairies. “The fairies are not dressed in steam punk, they have more of a fairy costume that is like Tinker Bell in a way,” said Kylie Reuter. The higher class is dressed in more steam punk whereas the lower class doesn’t have that much steam punk to their costumes. “The great thing about A Midsummer Night’s Dream is how broad the comedy is across a large amount of people in the show and it’s almost like everyone gets their own little moment on stage to be fun and funny,” said Mr. Eitrheim when asked what his favorite thing about A Midsummer Night’s Dream.