The Acting Company: A Midsummer Night's Dream

Acclaimed Tony Award-winning touring theater group The Acting Company makes its historic return to Spa Little Theater.

A rapturous, fresh take on one of William Shakespeare’s most popular and widely performed plays, The Acting Company’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a captivating coming-of-age story that will surprise and delight!

In this fast-paced, crowd-pleasing comedy, Puck stumbles upon a theater filled with stagehands setting up for a show, in the absence of the cast, Puck bespells them into telling the WHOLE of Shakespeare’s Midsummer. These virtuosic clowns embody lovers, mechanicals, and the wild world of the faeries as they move through this cherished classic tale of mistaken identities, romantic entanglements, and comical transformations.

Bursting with mirth, music, magic, and mayhem, this uplifting story of illusion and love comes to life with an electric cast of New York-based artists. 

The Acting Company’s appearance marks the company’s historic return to Spa Little Theater, where it held prominent summer residencies from 1972 through the early 1980s.

Tickets go on sale to the public on Friday, November 20 at 10AM.

SPAC Member presale takes place November 12–18, tiered by membership level:

• President’s Circle, Premiere Patron, & Corporate Visionary: Thursday, November 12 at 10AM ​
• Golden Patron, Corporate Innovator, & Corporate Pioneer: Friday, November 13 at 10AM
• Patron, Corporate Leader, & Corporate Mentor: Monday, November 16 at 10AM
• Bravo & Encore: Tuesday, November 17 at 10AM​
• Applause & Ovation: Wednesday, November 18 at 10AM​

Not a member? Join today for presale access!

Program

A Midsummer Night’s Dream  

Written by William Shakespeare 
Modern Verse Translation by Jeff Whitty 
Directed by Devin Brain  

This program is approximately 1 hour and 40 minutes long, with no intermission.

Performers

THE ACTING COMPANY

Under the leadership of Producing Artistic Director Devin Brain, Executive Director for Institutional Advancement Hillary Cohen, and General Manager Shelley Little, The Acting Company brings professional live theater productions and award-winning arts-in-education programs to thousands of audience members and school communities across the United States each year.

Founded by legendary performer-producers John Houseman and Margot Harley, the Company seeks to develop emerging actors by touring classic plays and newly commissioned adaptations nationwide. The Acting Company has launched the careers of nearly 500 actors, including Kevin Kline, Patti LuPone, Keith David, Rainn Wilson, Lorraine Toussaint, Frances Conroy, Harriet Harris, Jeffrey Wright, Hamish Linklater,
Jesse L. Martin, and Kelley Curran, among many others.

The Acting Company received the 2003 Tony Award for Excellence in the Theater and the 2019 Audelco Award for Best Play for its production of Nambi E. Kelley’s Native Son directed by Seret Scott. Its production of Homer’s Odyssey adapted and directed by Lisa Peterson from Emily Wilson’s landmark English-language translation was named one of the Ten Best Plays of 2023 by the Marin Independent Journal and the Company’s repertory of William Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors in modern verse translation by Christina Anderson with August Wilson’s Two Trains Running directed by Lili-Anne Brown won the Santa Barbara Independent’s 2025 Best Festival “Indy Award” for Theater.

Since 1972, The Acting Company has performed for over 4 million people in 48 States,10 foreign countries, on and Off-Broadway, and at leading resident theaters including The Guthrie and American Conservatory Theater. New works commissioned by the company include plays by William Finn, Marcus Gardley, Rebecca Gilman, John Guare, Beth Henley, Tony Kushner, Lynn Nottage, Meg Miroshnik, Ntozake Shange, Maria Irene Fornés, Spalding Gray, Nikki Massoud, Marsha Norman, Charles Smith, Samm-Art Williams, and Wendy Wasserstein. theactingcompany.org

This program is made possible in part with generous support from
Phinney Design Group and LeChase Construction