My Essay
For each play, there is a soundtrack to tie in the feelings felt from scene to scene, and that’s exactly what I intended for the soundtrack for my adaptation of Shakespeare’s hit play “Midsummer Night’s Dream.” My group and I agreed on the setting of the North Pole for our adaptation. While it was not the most conventional setting for a play to take place, the setting would add a nice surprising and unfamiliar twist to the well-known play. For this play, I felt to make a soundtrack to reflect both the feelings of the scenes/characters as well as being able to tie it back into the setting.
For a lot of my songs, I chose them based on our characters or the setting. With this, I added in a few theme songs, such as for Egeus, Hippolyta and Theseus, Helena, and Puck. However, I did not focus on just the characters for why I chose these songs. I chose them based on what association the characters have with them. For example, Theseus and Hippolyta are sort of the leaders of this show, earning them the song “Circle of Bosses,” and for Puck, I chose a song reflecting his magic, Helena received a song reflecting her loss of romantic hope, and finally, Egeus got a song to tie back to the character he plays in our adaptation, Jack Frost. I find these songs to bring the character’s aspects to the forefront of who they are, making a bigger impression of what the audience thinks about them.
While each song might have a different purpose throughout our adaptation, they each tie in parts of the major factors of the play, with those major factors being primarily: love and magic and power. In order to reflect these in our adaptation, songs that conveyed these ideas were selected, such as “Fine By Me” by Andy Grammer, “This Could Be Us,” a song by Rae Sremmurd, and finally, Drake’s song “Hotline Bling.” “Fine By Me” reflects the lust characters appear to have for each other, with “This Could Be Us” conveying a very similar message, and “Hotline Bling” representing the lost hopes and crushed hearts from relationships not working out. Overall, I utilized these songs to not only reflect the character’s attributes solely but to also uncover the feelings between the characters.
Finally, I find that my group’s adaptation and my songs represent the bardic tendencies of Shakespeare’s “Midsummer Night’s Dream” pretty well. Not only do we teach values with our adaptation, a bardic attribute that is displayed in the original play, but we also focus on other themes of a bard, as well. For example, our adaptation brings to life a major attribute that is used in the initial play, that being the idea of using language to intentionally craft a powerful narrative that can be interpreted in a variety of mediums, which I think is a powerful part of our piece. Along with this, our adaptations allow for public engagement, consumption as well as interpretation, all of which are bardic tendencies that were adopted from the original play. Ultimately, through our adaptation and the soundtrack, we are able to bring to life, through our unique creative means, this bardic play in order to convey the messages in our own way to give it a new interpretation.
For a lot of my songs, I chose them based on our characters or the setting. With this, I added in a few theme songs, such as for Egeus, Hippolyta and Theseus, Helena, and Puck. However, I did not focus on just the characters for why I chose these songs. I chose them based on what association the characters have with them. For example, Theseus and Hippolyta are sort of the leaders of this show, earning them the song “Circle of Bosses,” and for Puck, I chose a song reflecting his magic, Helena received a song reflecting her loss of romantic hope, and finally, Egeus got a song to tie back to the character he plays in our adaptation, Jack Frost. I find these songs to bring the character’s aspects to the forefront of who they are, making a bigger impression of what the audience thinks about them.
While each song might have a different purpose throughout our adaptation, they each tie in parts of the major factors of the play, with those major factors being primarily: love and magic and power. In order to reflect these in our adaptation, songs that conveyed these ideas were selected, such as “Fine By Me” by Andy Grammer, “This Could Be Us,” a song by Rae Sremmurd, and finally, Drake’s song “Hotline Bling.” “Fine By Me” reflects the lust characters appear to have for each other, with “This Could Be Us” conveying a very similar message, and “Hotline Bling” representing the lost hopes and crushed hearts from relationships not working out. Overall, I utilized these songs to not only reflect the character’s attributes solely but to also uncover the feelings between the characters.
Finally, I find that my group’s adaptation and my songs represent the bardic tendencies of Shakespeare’s “Midsummer Night’s Dream” pretty well. Not only do we teach values with our adaptation, a bardic attribute that is displayed in the original play, but we also focus on other themes of a bard, as well. For example, our adaptation brings to life a major attribute that is used in the initial play, that being the idea of using language to intentionally craft a powerful narrative that can be interpreted in a variety of mediums, which I think is a powerful part of our piece. Along with this, our adaptations allow for public engagement, consumption as well as interpretation, all of which are bardic tendencies that were adopted from the original play. Ultimately, through our adaptation and the soundtrack, we are able to bring to life, through our unique creative means, this bardic play in order to convey the messages in our own way to give it a new interpretation.