FROM STAFF REPORTS

HOOVER – What happens when a group of teenagers find themselves in the midst of a Shakespeare comedy?

Find out this weekend as Hoover’s Berry Middle School presents its spring play, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream: OR The Night They Missed the Forest for the Trees.”

Adapted from Shakespeare’s classic tale, this version starts off in study hall, where just about everyone is doing everything except studying for tomorrow’s test on “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” That is, until Jessie gets an idea.

In this rollicking adaptation of Shakespeare’s play, teenagers, fairies, workers and royalty collide in a forest on a summer night and are bedazzled by a prankster. The fairy queen falls in love with a donkey, the teens fall in and out of love with each other, and six well-meaning goofs stumble into their 15 minutes of fame.

With the help of three streetwise narrators, this tapestry of love, mischief and mayhem takes the audience on a hilarious ride, as fairies weave their magic to bring it all to a happy end as only Shakespeare can.

The play runs about an hour and is a great introduction to Shakespeare for younger audiences (approximately second grade and up), said Dianne Rowe, who teaches theatre arts at Berry Middle School.

Performances are Friday, March 10, at 7 p.m. and Saturday, March 11, at 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. at Spain Park High School theater.

Admission is $5; children 5 and under are free.