CMU Returns to its Roots with a Radical New Shakespearean Rendition
School of Drama
written by
Shannon Musgrave
This summer, students, faculty and alumni from the School of Drama made a theatrical pilgrimage to Andrew Carnegie’s homeland of Scotland, where they performed a radically reimagined adaptation of Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. The production was the culmination of the inaugural year of CMU’s Center for New Work, whose mission is to connect CMU’s renowned School of Drama with local and national partners to develop new plays, musicals and boundary-breaking works, making Pittsburgh an epicenter for live theatrical development.
One Year In: Collaboration, Creation, Transnational Adaptation
The Center for New Work was founded in 2025 by co-artistic directors Rick Edinger (Associate Professor of Music Theater and chair of Acting and Music Theater) & Brannon Bowers, through generous support from the Richard King Mellon Foundation. The Center produced over 15 public events across Pittsburgh in its first year through partnerships with City Theatre Company, Kelly Strayhorn Theater, Pittsburgh CLO, Pittsburgh Public Theater and the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust. Its final project of the year was its most ambitious yet.
“When we launched the Center, one of our primary goals was to create a bridge between the extraordinary training happening within the CMU School of Drama and the professional field — to give our students meaningful opportunities to develop new work alongside established artists and organizations, and to allow that work to have a life beyond our campus,” said Edinger. “To culminate our first year by taking 19 students and an entire production across the Atlantic to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe feels like an enormous realization of that mission.”
Key collaborators on “Midsummer!” included Tony Award-winning playwright Jeff Whitty, director Kim Weild (Paul Mellon Distinguished Professor of Drama and chair of the School of Drama’s John Wells Directing Program), and producing partner Play On Shakespeare, a non-profit company dedicated to promoting and creating contemporary modern English translations of Shakespeare’s plays.
The Center brought Play On Shakespeare staff to CMU twice to work with students: first in January, for a workshop that was open to the entire School of Drama, and again in May, to work with the “Midsummer!” cast and creative team. During that visit, hosted at The Frank-Ratchye STUDIO for Creative Inquiry, the team worked to create a visual map of the play, giving everyone a shared understanding of the story’s architecture and possibilities, according to Weild.
“The Center gave us the opportunity to approach the piece through a genuine new play development process, allowing discovery to continue as we worked toward a fully realized production,” she said. “That is exactly what new work development should be.”
Not Your Mother’s “Midsummer!”
Whitty, the playwright and screenwriter behind “Avenue Q,” “Bring It On: The Musical” and “Can You Ever Forgive Me?,” brought his edgy wit and comedic rhythm to this adaptation, and Weild and the company helped infuse the world with Pittsburgh heritage. Set in Gilded Age western Pennsylvania, where the industrial world of Pittsburgh meets the wildness and beauty of the Laurel Highlands, their production was fast, funny, musical and full of transformation.
“Andrew Carnegie’s journey from Scotland to Pittsburgh became one of our creative jumping-off points,” said Weild. “As we developed the production, we asked what it means for a company of young American artists — many at the beginning of their careers — to bring an American translation of Shakespeare from Pittsburgh back across the Atlantic to Scotland. Carnegie crossed the ocean carrying ideas and ambitions that would help shape Pittsburgh; now our students are making that journey in reverse, carrying with them a production shaped by the city, its history, its contradictions and its extraordinary spirit of innovation.”
Rachel Laurence was the production’s sound designer and composer and is beginning her junior year in the School of Drama’s BFA Sound Design program. She used Appalachian music to invoke memory and community, and contemporary house music to create the liberating energy of the fairy world.
Nine actors, all School of Drama students, played 26 characters in this 90-minute version of the story. Moyo Ifafore, who is beginning her senior year, played the roles of Egeus, Quince and a fairy. She said she has been especially tuned into audiences’ appetites for new, accessible versions of classical texts.
“A new adaptation is like a breath of fresh air for people who have seen a play like ‘Midsummer’ a thousand times, but never have they seen it with Appalachians and techno raving fairies,” she said.
Joining Ifafore on stage were Rusty Daniel, Celia Evans, Jakai-Nyasia, Siahvash Marshall, Suri Noelle, Eli Strain, Christian Trimmingham and Logan Yao. Von Nishan Markarian was the company’s swing and dance captain.
The creative team that brought this dream to life was made up of School of Drama students, faculty and alumni, including Lucas Fedele as choreographer; Randy Kovitz as fight director; Matthew Kereama as assistant director; Abby Brunner as production stage manager; Reigh Wilson as stage manager; Mags Holcomb as dramaturg; Zhuang Kang as scenic and props designer; Bri Johnson as costume, hair and makeup designer; Julie Adams as lighting designer; Rachel Laurence as sound designer; and Emma Lemire as technical director.
Edinger reflected on the scale of this endeavor as a unique and meaningful part of the students’ experiential education.
“Our students have been part of building this thing from the ground up,” he said. “In just three months we designed, rehearsed, built and previewed the show in Pittsburgh before we packed the entire thing up and brought it to Edinburgh, performing 13 times and sharing a venue with professionals from around the world.”
Edinburgh Festival Fringe
As CMU’s 125th anniversary year drew to a close, the journey to Scotland was both a symbolic return to the institution’s roots and a celebration of its theatrical excellence, debuting a new generation of artists on one of the world’s most prestigious international stages.
The Edinburgh Festival Fringe, now in its 79th season, is a three-week performing arts festival held in Edinburgh each August. With thousands of performances in hundreds of venues across the city, this global showcase of emerging and established artists spans all genres of live performance including theater, comedy, music, dance, circus and cabaret. For these three weeks, the city’s architecture and infrastructure transform to welcome an extraordinary concentration of artists and audiences.
“Artists are everywhere, audiences are adventurous, and conversations about theater spill out of the venues and onto the streets, into pubs, cafés and other gathering places,” said Weild. “Walking home after seeing a show, you overhear people animatedly discussing what they have just experienced. It feels as though the entire city is participating in one enormous conversation about performance.”
Celia Evans, a sophomore in the School of Drama’s acting program, played Hermia, Moth, Snug and Lion in the production and said that performing in Edinburgh has been incredibly inspiring.
“I'm seeing some of the most alive theater I've experienced in a while, and absorbing the passion and excitement people have for the work they've created has made me all the more passionate about my work,” she said.
For Edinger, seeing the students experience Edinburgh has been one of his favorite parts of the entire process.
“Our students aren't just performing ‘Midsummer!’ every day — they are seeing shows, meeting artists, navigating an international festival, engaging with audiences and discovering forms of theater and performance they may never have encountered before,” he said. “They are learning, expanding, evolving simply by being here.”
Weild agrees.
“‘Midsummer!’ represents so much of what excites me about teaching and making theater at CMU,” she said, “rigorous training, adventurous new work development, deep collaboration and the opportunity to connect our students with the wider professional world.”
‘Midsummer!’ represents so much of what excites me about teaching and making theater at CMU: rigorous training, adventurous new work development, deep collaboration and the opportunity to connect our students with the wider professional world.
Paul Mellon Distinguished Professor of Drama and Chair of the John Wells Directing Program
School of Drama
featuring the following:
photography by Mackenzie Breeden