This year’s Orcas Island Shakespeare Festival featured “A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Abduction)” as its full-length theatre production. The play ran for two nights of the festival at Orcas Center.

The modernized version of “Midsummer” contained “faliens” (a fairy-alien hybrid) rather than the traditional fairies, and included Skype, Facebook Messenger, musical performances and more. The cast consisted of 16 students and five adults. The students were all fantastic actors, even though many had never set foot upon stage prior to the show.

For the past two school years, the Orcas Island Education Foundation, Orcas Island High School, Orcas Center and Jake Perrine have been collaborating on a “Theatre as Literature” class offered as an English credit to students.

Playing the lovers were Kaya Osborn as Lysander; Ashley Klein as Hermia; McCabe Webb as Demetrius and Maggie Toombs as Helena. Each actor held embodied their characters well, all of them exuding the confidence of seasoned actors.

The hilarious “mechanicals” were played by Claire Orser as Nick Bottom; Dana Sabine as Peter Quince; Steven Bodenhamer as Francis Flute; Jessica Nichols as Snug the Joiner; Ryan Heath as Peter Sniveling; and Kevin Campos as Tom Snout. Orser was hilarious as pompous Nick Bottom, and Bodenhamer had the audience in a fit of laughter playing Francis Flute as Thisbe.

Puck, a favorite of many fans of “Midsummer,” was played by Pasha Bullock. He portrayed the character in a more historically accurate interpretation than the rest of the play. He moved around the stage with the grace of a mischievous fairy.

The “faliens” were played by Jo Gudgell, Enzo Thixton, Desmond Graves, Jayden Kopp, Margo Van Gelder, Sierra Morrison and Lexie Pence. Thixton and Graves performed aerials on silks with mastery during a musical interlude, adding to the mysticism of the troupe.

Mackey Cardinell and Lilly Miller entertained the audience prior to the show by trotting around dressed as a donkey.

Jake Perrine both directed and acted in the play, choosing to portray the manipulative fairy king Oberon. Opposite Perrine was Elane Phipps as the fairy queen Titania. Kelly Toombs and Heather Kathryne acted as the royal couple Theseus and Hippolyte. Rounding out the adult cast was Luann Pamatian as Hermia’s mother, Egeus.

Overall the play was a fabulously produced modernization of one of Shakespeare’s beloved comedies.