Photo by Richard Termine
Lysander and Hermia - A Rockin’ Midsummer Night’s Dream
Lysander and Hermia in Skylight Music Theatre's 'A Rockin’ Midsummer Night’s Dream' (2026)
A Midsummer Night’s Dream might be William Shakespeare’s most performed play in today’s world.
The multiple plots and potentially large cast of fairies and “mechanicals” (laborers) make it ideal for high school and college productions. The romantic supernatural comedy has been adapted into films and operas, and this spring, Skylight Music Theatre presents the “professional world premiere” of A Rockin’ Midsummer Night’s Dream. The musical’s score is by Eric Svejcar with “adaptation and additional lyrics” by Skylight’s artistic director, Michael Unger. Unger will direct.
A Rockin’ Midsummer Night’s Dream was heard before, at NewArts in Newtown, CT, in a show by local students with lead roles contributed by Broadway actors. Newtown had just witnessed the Sandy Hook School shooting, which stole 26 lives. Unger conceived the musical to “use the arts to heal a community torn apart.” His collaborator on the project, Svejcar, is an Off-Broadway music director and occasional composer.
Unger retains Shakespeare’s setting, ancient Athens, “a city in disarray. Love puts it back together. Love heals the city,” he explains. Eighty-five percent of the words are Shakespeare’s own, and the remaining 15% “are really close. There are a couple things I didn’t love about the play” as written, Unger adds. Regarding the forced marriage of Hippolyta to Duke Theseus, “I’ve given her more agency, more control of her destiny,” Unger continues. “She can change Theseus’ perspective and help him become a better human … I think Shakespeare would approve.”
In Svejcar’s eclectic score, contemporary pop encounters Burt Bacharach sophistication and hard rock segues into swing. Svejcar will be in the pit (rock) band on keyboards.
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The all-ages cast includes many elementary-through-college-age Milwaukeeans. Unger instructs them that Shakespeare “is not a foreign language. If you know where to stress the words, you’ll understand them and the audience will understand them.”
A Rockin’ Midsummer Night’s Dream is “respectful of Shakespeare’s play and it’s fun,” Unger concludes. “If you love Shakespeare, you’ll love it. If you hate Shakespeare, this production will change your mind.”
April 10-26 at Broadway Theatre Center, 158 N. Broadway. For tickets, visit skylightmusictheatre.org.
