Forget the fairy wings.<\/strong> In the Classic Repertory Company<\/a> (CRC) production of Shakespeare\u2019s A Midsummer Night\u2019s Dream<\/em>, costumes, lighting, and sets are nearly nonexistent. The jean-clad cast of eight (mostly CFA alums) remains onstage at all times, transitioning between roles and scenes to the beat of a drum. Midsummer<\/em> is rife with transformation (of scorn to love, friend to foe, and, memorably, an average Joe into the donkey-headed paramour of a fairy queen) and the CRC\u2019s minimalist aesthetic underscores this theme, inspiring actors and audience to refashion space through imagination.<\/p>\n \u201cYou come back to the basics\u2014who are these people and what are they doing?\u201d says Celia Pain (\u201913), who plays the mischievous sprite Puck and is education and advocacy coordinator for CRC, the flagship educational outreach program of the New Repertory Theatre<\/a> (New Rep) in Watertown, Massachusetts. Pain and her fellow actors bring stage adaptations of classical and modern literature to New England-area schools and communities, including those underserved in the arts.<\/p>\n \u201cNot only does our accessible approach to the material hopefully give them new insight into or love for these texts, but I think it\u2019s really good for these kids to see that we went to school for something we are passionate about, that school can be fun<\/em>,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n CRC, which is in its first year of partnership with Boston University, is a bridge program that aims to help recent graduates make the leap into professional theater. \u201cIt builds their confidence, it builds their stamina, it builds their r\u00e9sum\u00e9,\u201d says Jim Petosa<\/a>, New Rep\u2019s artistic director and the director of the College of Fine Arts School of Theatre, \u201cand it gives them that important thing that an actor always needs: an audience to engage.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Julie Rattey | Photo by Christopher McKenzie Forget the fairy wings. In the Classic Repertory Company (CRC) production of Shakespeare\u2019s A Midsummer Night\u2019s Dream, costumes, lighting, and sets are nearly nonexistent. The jean-clad cast of eight (mostly CFA alums) remains onstage at all times, transitioning between roles and scenes to the beat of a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6143,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18,17],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1756"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6143"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1756"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1756\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6099,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1756\/revisions\/6099"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}