--- title: Shakespeare in the Park Midsummer Night's Dream Aging Fairies description: Why New York's Shakespeare in the Park cast seniors, not the usual sexy young dancers, as fairies in 'A Midsummer Night's Dream.' canonical: https://time.com/4886439/shakespeare-in-the-park-midsummer-nights-dream/ author: Eben Shapiro article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-08-03T19:18:44.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T16:51:24.914Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: Aging Fairies Take the Stage in Shakespeare in the Park's 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' og:description: Love in different stages of life takes on different forms og:url: https://time.com/4886439/shakespeare-in-the-park-midsummer-nights-dream/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt42c4b3c507f6df69/6988d854cf40a8c7d0c48d2f/midsummer-nights-dream-kristine-nielsen.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: midsummer-nights-dream-kristine-nielsen og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Aging Fairies Take the Stage in Shakespeare in the Park's 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' twitter:description: Love in different stages of life takes on different forms twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt42c4b3c507f6df69/6988d854cf40a8c7d0c48d2f/midsummer-nights-dream-kristine-nielsen.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Aging Fairies Take the Stage in Shakespeare in the Park's _A Midsummer Night's Dream_ > Sponsored content. 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Terms and conditions apply. * Savings buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Savings Account. * No ATM fees from Ally Bank at Allpoint and Moneypass ATMs plus we reimburse for fees charged by other ATM owners nationwide up to $10 per statement cycle. * Early direct deposit offers eligible direct deposits up to two days sooner. * Spending buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Spending Account.  by [Eben Shapiro](https://time.com/author/eben-shapiro/)  ## Eben Shapiro Eben Shapiro is the former deputy editor of TIME Aug 3, 2017 7:18 PM UTC  Kyle Beltran, Kristine Nielsen and Shalita Grant in The Public Theater’s Shakespeare in the Park production running at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park. The show runs through Aug. 13. Kyle Beltran, Kristine Nielsen and Shalita Grant in The Public Theater’s Shakespeare in the Park production running at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park. The show runs through Aug. 13.Joan Marcus—The Public Theater  by [Eben Shapiro](https://time.com/author/eben-shapiro/)  ## Eben Shapiro Eben Shapiro is the former deputy editor of TIME Aug 3, 2017 7:18 PM UTC For all of the attempts to modernize Shakespeare – hail [Trump as Caesar](http://time.com/4822840/shakespeare-in-the-park-donald-trump-protests/) – some aspects of the Bard’s productions appear set in stone. Such is the case with the mischievous fairies of _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_.At the age of 15, Mickey Rooney played Puck in a lavish Hollywood production, and a teenage Laurence Olivier dazzled the audience with his portrayal of Shakespeare’s “shrewd and knavish sprite” in a student production at Oxford. In Shakespeare’s day, Puck and his fellow fairies were likely played by young boys and today the average age of actors playing Puck is 23, according to Mandy.com, a web site for the performing industry. So it is jarring when Puck and the fairy tribe first take the stage in the Public Theater’s current production of _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_, which runs through Aug. 13 in New York City’s Central Park. Puck is played by Kristine Nielsen, an accomplished actor with Carol Burnett-like comic chops. Nielsen is 62\. Vinie Burrows, the oldest fairy, is 88\. The rest of the fairies are senior citizens as well, including a retired New York City high school English teacher. Director Lear deBessonet says the atypical casting approach was inspired by the desire to put a fresh stamp on one of Shakespeare’s most frequently produced plays. “There are certain theater tropes that come to exist and in _Midsummer Night’s Dream_ you are up against a lot of them,” she says. She very much did not want to paint the fairies green. “The stereotype of the fairies is lithe young people in glittery unitards, sort of sprawling around and I’ve never found that to be magical. What’s is magical to me is my grandmother.” Casting the senior citizens as fairies allowed deBessonet to explore the notions of mortality and magic that permeate a play filled with spells and love-inducing potions. “For me the thesis statement is that magic isn’t that thing that happens invisibly, someplace else. Magic is already here if you have the eyes to see it, in your neighbor, your grandmother, the person sitting next to you on the subway.” She was also intrigued by the growing body of research on the benefits of being playful as an adult. Life has setbacks and disappointments as well as triumphs, and one of the best protections to being dealt a blow is to have sense of humor about it, she says. In another contrast to the tight-wearing fairies of most productions, Puck and the others are outfit in pajamas, adding another layer of familiarity and doddering mortality to the proceedings. Nielsen said she was initially leery of playing Puck — ”I had in my mind all those dancer-like bad boys who played Puck” — but that the pajamas and night clothes gave a sense of freedom, plus “not having to see my body in tights.” The Public’s production is not the first to age Midsummer’s fairies.Columbia University’s James Shapiro, a leading authority on Shakespeare and the Public’s Shakespeare Scholar in Residence, notes that a 2015 production by Dublin’s Abbey Theatre was set in a nursing home. But he says the version currently running in New York is an excellent vehicle for exploring one of the play’s key themes, that love in different stages of life takes on different forms. “This is a very fresh and original production, which is hard to do,” Shapiro says. And it adds another dimension for both audience and actors alike. “Not to be macabre about it,” says Nielsen, “but we all look around and found that there are a lot of angels and fairies that we have lost that are always there and looking out for us.” Shakespeare in the Park Midsummer Night's Dream Aging Fairies ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4886439/shakespeare-in-the-park-midsummer-nights-dream/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4886439/shakespeare-in-the-park-midsummer-nights-dream/"},"headline":"Aging Fairies Take the Stage in Shakespeare in the Park's A Midsummer Night's Dream","datePublished":"2017-08-03T19:18:44.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T16:51:24.914Z","description":"Why New York's Shakespeare in the Park cast seniors, not the usual sexy young dancers, as fairies in 'A Midsummer Night's Dream.'","url":"https://time.com/4886439/shakespeare-in-the-park-midsummer-nights-dream/","keywords":["Theater"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt42c4b3c507f6df69/6988d854cf40a8c7d0c48d2f/midsummer-nights-dream-kristine-nielsen.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Eben Shapiro","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/eben-shapiro/"}],"articleSection":"Entertainment","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt42c4b3c507f6df69/6988d854cf40a8c7d0c48d2f/midsummer-nights-dream-kristine-nielsen.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"midsummer-nights-dream-kristine-nielsen","caption":"Kyle Beltran, Kristine Nielsen and Shalita Grant in The Public Theater’s Shakespeare in the Park production running at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park. 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