After nine eminently successful years at Bellaire High School in Houston, Cecil Pickett was appointed to the drama faculty at the University of Houston, where he continued to gain renown as a director.

In this 1-act adaptation of A Midsummer Night's Dream—winner of the Texas UIL state championship and a feature of the Houston Shakespeare Festival—he shows his knack for knowing what to keep in and what to leave out without jarring transitions, awkward changes of character, or disrupting blackouts. We see and clearly understand the family spat between Oberon and Titania and the manner in which this conjugal disagreement affects the efforts of a group of tradesmen rehearsing a play. We delight in the antics of the mischievous Puck, we laugh at the ineptness of the Rustics in trying to stage their play, we chuckle at Bottom's desire to play every role—and we howl with delight at Bottom's ass's head and Titania's infatuation with the monster.

Cecil Pickett's adaptations are arranged with the playscript on the right-hand page and corresponding detailed stage directions and suggestions on the left-hand page. This adaptation suggests a set comprised of a few trees, two or three tree stumps, a platform, and a trampoline concealed behind the platform so that Puck can make impressive leaping entrances. There are many costume possibilities. Shakespeare is famous (or infamous) for his indifference to time and place. So the costumer has many options—ancient Greece, medieval Scandinavian, early French, Elizabethan England, or timeless Fairyland...among others. Mr. Pickett gives his costume choices in the Production Notes.

Audiences fortunate enough to see a Pickett-directed play are always enthralled by the style, the grace, the charm, the choreographed movement. When Puck wafts glitter through the air to the tinkling accompaniment of bells; when Titania's fairies carry her in on a palanquin with choreographed style; when Oberon stops action with flowing gestures, "charm" and "grace" are the key. And this graceful style is especially effective when it is rudely interrupted by the boorish, earthy, plodding Rustics.

Music—Shakespearean, Renaissance, or modern classical (see Production Notes)—is suggested as the curtain opens and elsewhere in the stage directions.

Other plays by Pickett: The Comedy of Errors, Twelfth Night

More Shakespeare: As You Like It, Macbeth, The Taming of the Shrew

See also: Makbeth by Schechner