The historic Echo Church will dive into another type of history — theater — when it welcomes the Grassroots Shakespeare Company on Saturday. The five-piece Utah-based nonprofit acting and music troupe will perform the Bard of Avon’s classic and enchanting comedy, “A Midsummer Night’s D ream,” and actor Alyssa Tanner Vaughn looks forward to making the audience laugh. “This play is a riot,” she said. “It is a farce, and in addition to all the magic and everything, it’s just goofy.” The play, written in the late 1500s, is set around the marriage of Greek mythology characters Theseus and Hippolyta and includes a hailstorm of subplots that pits humans against fairies. Tanner Vaughn, who will take on the roles — yes, roles — of King Oberon, Demitrius and Snug, said she loves seeing Shakespeare’s interpretation of the fairies. “I love seeing them in all of their majesty and mystery but also seeing they are just silly guys,” she said with a laugh. “There is something timeless about Puck, who is the everyman audience connection.” Grassroots Shakespeare performs this and all of Shakespeare’s plays in what is called direct-address, where the actors interact with the audience, Tanner Vaughn said. “There are so many wonderful interpretations of Shakespeare, and all of them are wonderful and valid, but I view who we try to use Shakespeare’s original technique as it was written really makes (these performances) accessible to people,” she said. “Even with the play being so full of fantasy and myth, the script has everything you need.” In order to make the plays accessible to audiences, cast members put a lot of emphasis on script analysis and original practice, Tanner Vaughn said. “We look at the text and try to find what Shakespeare was actually trying to say,” she said. “We pay a lot of attention to the meter. We pay attention to original definitions and words, and we try not to alter the script as far as replacing words or pronouns.” By doing so, the company’s performances come off as easy to understand, Tanner Vaughn said. “I feel, and I feel our other actors will agree, that Shakespeare’s words are written so humanely, even with the fantasy and heightened language,” she said. “In ‘Midsummer,’ where everything reads more like a poem than how a person may actually speak, it still feels so natural to say all the lines.” Saturday’s performance marks Tanner Vaughn’s fifth production of “Midsummer Night’s Dream.” “I’ve played a lot of the characters, so it’s been amazing to see how many different angles and ways you can portray them,” she said. “And it’s good every time. It’s so funny and full of opportunity.” The company will arrive early at Echo Church because it has to set up the stage, Tanner Vaughn said. “We have two stages,” she said. “For our summer tours, we have a big stage that has all the platforms, and it usually takes two hours or more to set up and take down.”The other stage, which will be set up at Echo, is smaller, Tanner Vaughn said.“It’s just the top platform of the big stage with pillars and curtains that we use for our traveling and educational tour shows,” she said. “That one takes 30 minutes to an hour to set up. So it’s not that bad.” Still, the cast pays attention to the stage throughout the season. “They take a lot of beating from the weather,” Tanner Vaughn said. “Things get sunbleached, and things get weak from us stepping on them and shoving things into place. And we’ve found they are also a good place for bugs. So we do what we can to maintain them.” Tanner Vaughn joined Grassroots Shakespeare six years ago and remembers the first time she performed with the company. “I was terrified,” she said with a laugh. “But I was also very startled by how friendly everybody was and how collaborative they were.” That openness helped Tanner Vaughn build self-confidence. “I was small and young and felt I shouldn’t even be there, but everyone wanted to hear my opinion,” she said. “And they didn’t just want to know how my day was going. They wanted me to give input in all the show choices and directing purposes.” Before joining Grassroots Shakespeare, Tanner Vaughn was unfamiliar with people valuing her opinions. “It was a very pleasant surprise that they were interested in what I had to bring to the table as far as the show, the characters and costumes,” she said. Grassroots Shakespeare, a nonprofit that relies on donations and grants, regularly holds auditions, Tanner Vaughn said. “Anybody who wants to audition comes with a one-minute Shakespeare monologue,” she said. “If you have one of those, you pretty much get called back, and that’s when the real audition process happens.” During the call backs, the actors will participate in warm-up games to get to know one another, Tanner Vaughn said. “Then we’ll have everybody do their same monologues for everybody who has been called back, and we’ll give notes,” she said. Sometimes the notes are constructive, and sometimes they are “goofy,” Tanner Vaughn said. “Then we’ll ask them to do a 30-second portion of their monologues again, and we’ll see how well they took notes and assess how much they can play in those spaces,” she said. “We also judge and look at how well people can collaborate. After that, everyone in the callback will vote who they want in the cast.” Tanner Vaughn considers the cast members family. “It’s great getting to be on the road with longtime cast members or new cast members,” she said.  Tanner Vaughn doesn’t have a favorite Shakespeare play but said “Twelfth Night” will always come to mind. “It was one of the first ones I read as a small kid, but I also love ‘Romeo and Juliet’ and ‘Henry V,” she said. “The first Shakespeare play I saw was ‘The Winter’s Tale,’ and that always holds a special place in my heart.”   Tanner Vaughn feels a keen responsibility to make sure audiences have enjoyed the Grassroots’ performances. “My favorite part about performing with Grassroots is when I hear people or kids say to me after the show that they thought Shakespeare was boring and had no idea how fun he is,” she said. “Even if they don’t understand anything in the play, but had fun, hopefully that will leave a spark of something — the love of theatre or the love of Shakespeare.”  Grassroots Shakespeare, ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream’ When: 4 p.m. Saturday Where: Historic Echo Church, 50 Temple Ln. Cost: Free, but donations will be accepted Web: grassroots-shakespeare.com and tinyurl.com/2zb3t5ta The post ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ comes to the historic Echo Church appeared first on Park Record. ...read more read less