BRAVE NEW SHAKESPEARE CHALLENGE - A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM

Brave New Shakespeare 2.0

This fall, the Public Shakespeare Initiative is proud to have the extraordinary artists Danaya Esperanza and Alexandria Wailes as Guest Curators for all of our Brave New Shakespeare releases, In the coming weeks and months, they will also be engaging young people to create their own videos, which will be featured here.

This week’s release is our first in this new format, curated by the fabulous Danaya Esperanza. She has gathered an astonishing group of artists to work their magic with the mercurial, mysterious, and transfiguring language of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Enjoy! And we hope you'll be inspired to create your own in whatever way you want -- post it on social media and add #bravenewshakespeare so we can find you!

Artistic Statement from Guest Curator Danaya Esperanza.

“For me, much of Shakespeare's work is about exploring humanity - our extremes, and how the extremes at either end are often closer than we think. What I see in A Midsummer Night's Dream is a parallel to the world we're living in: "the seasons alter" as the climate continues responding to our love/hate relationship with our earth, of which we should be the protectors. The young lovers are trying to navigate a world they were handed, not one they chose; and once again, the lines between love and hate, friend and foe, enemy and lover blur.”

Danaya Esperanza is an artist based in New York. She's made a career in the Off-Broadway scene and The Public Theater has become a second home, where she has workshopped a number of plays, and performed in the recent award-winning production of For Colored Girls (Lady in Orange); The Mobile Unit's Twelfth Night (Viola), The Tempest (Ariel), and the upcoming Cymbeline (Imogen). Danaya is also a teaching artist and director and, after performing in a couple of them, is honored to be curating her first Brave New Shakespeare Challenge.