Discussion Questions provided by Director of Education David Daniel
1. When have you, like the lovers, found yourself lost, either literally or emotionally, and did that journey lead to any unexpected clarity, fun, or understanding?
2. Do you think love is more magical or more chaotic? How does this play make you feel about love in the forest?
3. Have you ever been changed by a dream, a trip, or a wild experience? Did you come back to your “real life” feeling different?
4. In the play, people fall in love for strange reasons. What do you think influences who we fall for in real life and how much control do we really have?
5. When have you experienced something that felt unreal but taught you something very real?
6. If you were directing a version of this play, which character’s story would you center and why?
7. Do you think the play is about learning to obey society’s rules or learning to break them?
8. The fairies represent forces of nature and unpredictability. If you had a magical power like theirs, would you use it to help or to cause mischief?
9. Who in the play do you understand the most- not because of the Shakespearean language they speak, but because you understand what they want the most? What does that say about your own values or priorities?
10. Do you think Puck’s mistakes are accidents or part of something bigger? In your own life, have “mistakes” ever ended up helping you?
11. How might telling a story through multiple forms- speech, sign, gesture, mime- change how we understand a character's emotion or meaning?
12. Have you ever had to communicate something without words? How did that change the meaning or feeling of what you were trying to say?
13. In the Weave, Puck is played by two actors using different languages and bodies. What do you think that says about identity or duality? Do you have multiple ‘yous’ and when do you ‘use’ them?
14. What do you think might be added when a story is told in more than one language at once?
15. If you had to choose one mode of expression (speech, gesture, movement, silence, poetry), which would best tell your story, and why?
16. The forest in Midsummer is a place where rules collapse and imagination takes over. If you had a “forest” space in your life, a place where you could reimagine yourself and be someone one completely different, what would it look like? How would you behave differently?
17. When Bottom wakes up, he thinks he has just had a dream. Have you ever had a dream that felt like a message, or a dream that ‘changed’ you?
18. If you could rewrite the ending of the play, what would change and what would stay the same?
19. Classic COMEDIES involve a wedding. This symbolizes that the chaos of the play (the part everyone laughs at) is now ordered and safe. What do you think makes something truly funny or truly resolved?
20. What does the idea of being “changed by the woods” mean to you? Have you ever gone through something that left a mark on you in ways others might not see?
Credits:
Photos by Michael Brosilow, 2025.