Henry Purcell
The Fairy Queen

Stage Director Set/Costume Designer Producer Adaptation

About

New Adaptation by Andreas Mitisek and Culture Clash 
Musical Adaptation by Andreas Mitisek

In this reinvention of Shakespeare, Ron (short for Oberon) succumbs to the pole dancer and is found out by Tanya (Titania), who leaves him. Puck produces a tonic, in the form of an alcoholic punch, intended to make Tanya fall back in love with Ron, but she goes for Puck instead. Shakes unwittingly freely dispenses more punch to clubsters, and all hell breaks lose. Lysander finds his inner straight guy and falls for Helena, who learns she has a wild side. Turned on by Herman. Demetrius for the first time seems comfortable in his skin. Shakes, like Tanya, also goes after Puck.

Everything eventually goes back to normal, with the help of a drone delivery from Amazon, but not really. The characters have learned too much. It is Puck who undergoes the most touching transformation. –– LA Times 

Welcome to Club Fairy Queen, a louche Vegas lounge and hotel run by a sleazy owner-emcee named Puck. The drinks are spiked and the possibilities of erotic adventure are, as result, practically endless. Mitisek, in collaboration with the California performance troupe Culture Clash, has restored the basic plot outline of "Midsummer Night's Dream," given it a modern ambisexual spin and grafted it onto Purcell's inventive and charming score, an unrelated semi-opera of songs, choruses and instrumental dances. We are asked to ponder just how messy affairs of the heart can be, even without a love potion to make them messier.  –– Chicago Tribune

Reviews

...exuberant production, directed and designed by COT general director Andreas Mitisek... If all this sounds like an edgy contemporary cross between "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and "Cabaret," you'd be right. Chicago Opera Theater's reimagining of Henry Purcell's 1692 masque "The Fairy Queen" is perhaps the gayest show in town, and may just be the silliest as well, with laughs and elegant baroque tunes in abundance.

A gamble pays off: Long Beach Opera transports 1692 'Fairy Queen' to modern-day Vegas. Mitisek’s invention is not so much to take what he wants from Purcell’s score where and when he wants it, which of course he does do, but to let the nature of Purcell’s music lead him into new theatrical solutions.

Credits

Photos

Long Beach Opera 2017

Photographer: Keith Ian Polakoff

Chicago Opera Theater 2016

Photographer: Liz Lauren