Kai Giesbrecht, Diego Loeza, Maria Butler and Chase Houston pose as their characters in A Midsummer Night’s Dream before the opening of their show. Image Credit: Annabelle Tiller
Spring is the time of year when Santa Barbara High School (SBHS) Theatre puts on its annual musical. In 2025, they performed Hadestown, and in 2024, it was A Chorus Line. Still, Theatre Director Gioia Marchese could not get the thought of putting on A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare out of her mind. The only problem? The original play is not a musical. However, the desire to bring the play to life overtook Marchese, and, “Eventually I thought we could add music and dance and just make it a musical,” she said.
Certain changes were made to the original play for it to fit Marchese’s vision. The process began by cutting down the length of the play to fit the new musical parts, Marchese saying, “I made a list of moments in the play where I think music and dance would help tell the story.” In addition to the musical rebranding, Marchese wanted the play’s humor to appeal to today’s audience. “This is one of Shakespeare’s comedies. It is also about love.”
Still, she noticed how the power dynamics between the men and the women in the play felt outdated. The men in the original play were the ones to decide who the women could or could not be with. Marchese thought, “What would be funny is the opposite … It’s not just this outdated idea of girl power,” she said, “It’s showing how ridiculous having either sex be more powerful than the other is.” She is happy with the changes made and notes how funny the play is after their first reading.
With a musical production like this one, a long audition process was needed. Over the course of four days, students had to showcase their singing, dancing, and acting skills. Then, to see which actors were the best fit to play together, they did chemistry run-throughs. When the cast was announced, it was Kai Giesbrecht, Chase Houston, Maria Butler, and Diego Loeza who got the roles of the main four characters. They will be playing a group of young people tangled in a complicated and humorous love knot. “It’s my senior show, and I’ve been doing theatre for as long as I can remember. Being given a role that I love is such a gift,” says Giesbrecht after finding out she is playing the character Helena. Currently, the students are spending time analyzing Shakespeare’s writing to get a better sense of the story. They are also doing a lot of “partner work” to be more comfortable working with one another. They are all very passionate about this project, and Loeza emphasizes how excited he is to perform it with, “all these amazing actors.”
Out of the roughly 50 students involved in the making of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, only 20 of them are on stage acting. There is such a large variety of roles that exist in the theatre department, like the costume crew, people running the light board and sound system, mic-techs, and, very importantly, the stage manager. “Anyone who wants to be a part of it, we’ll find a place for you,” says Marchese.
“To put yourself out there is scary, but so worth it. This theatre company has made me a better singer, actor, dancer, but most importantly, a better person. There is so much community, love, friendship, and growth,” says Butler.
This highly anticipated production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream will have showings in the SBHS theatre during the last weekend of April and the first weekend of May. Tickets to see the musical generally sell for $10 to students and $15 for general admission.
When asked why people should see the spring musical, Houston says, “It’s one of the biggest productions Gioia Marchese has ever put on … Every year the shows get better and better, and this one is no different.”
