Before every rehearsal, freshman Gabriela Liasos kneels beside the stage, whispers a short prayer and knocks the floor three times for luck. Then she steps into her character – Hermia, the spirited and stubborn heroine of Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”
At St. Francis Catholic High School in Sacramento, the theater department is preparing to bring one of Shakespeare’s most beloved comedies to life. Opening Nov. 6, the all-girls school’s production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” features a predominantly female cast, with students taking on both male and female roles in a modern reimagining of the classic play.
The choice to stage “Midsummer” this year was part of a longer conversation about the St. Francis Arts Department 2025-2026 school year theme of “Legacy.” According to Laura Millar, the Director of the Arts at St. Francis, the production is both a nod to Shakespeare’s enduring influence and a celebration of the school’s own creative tradition.
“We wanted to bring back Shakespeare as a performance opportunity,” Millar said. “We just don’t have enough time to spend the time we should on Shakespeare as a performance as opposed to Shakespeare as literature.”
Millar explained that while the department considered other plays, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” quickly emerged as the perfect fit.
“When people think of Shakespeare, they tend to think of ‘Midsummer’ because it’s the most popular one,” she said.
The play’s humor, accessibility and timeless themes made it a natural choice for a high school audience, and a cast ready to stretch its acting skills. But St. Francis’ production of “Midsummer” carries a twist – inverting Shakespeare’s original casting traditions.
“When Shakespeare was writing these plays, women were not allowed to perform,” Millar said. “We’re doing the exact opposite, and I think that honors his work rather than challenging it.”
This idea of exploring the role of gender in Shakespeare resonated with Peter Saunders, St. Francis’ new Fine Arts Teacher and Theater Director who joined the staff this fall. Saunders, who has directed nearly 40 plays across the country, jumped straight into preparing for the show and leading rehearsals.
“It’s been great, actually,” Saunders said. “Directing Shakespeare is just a blast. I love Shakespeare to begin with, so this has been very much within my wheelhouse.”
Saunders said that while the mostly female cast presents a historical reversal, his approach to directing hasn’t required any major changes, only imagination.
“We all just kind of suspend our disbelief,” Saunders said. “In Shakespeare’s day, the cast would have been all male, so there’s a long tradition of gender-bending casting in his work.”
Reversing this historic gender narrative has allowed women to step into the spotlight and claim their space in a canon that once excluded them. At St. Francis, it has become an act of empowerment in itself. For students like Liasos, the chance to interpret Shakespeare from a female perspective feels both freeing and fun.
“It’s honestly kind of refreshing,” Liasos said. “I’ve worked with and on other Shakespeare shows before, and I had to be a man in a few. So just working with mostly girls – it’s very refreshing because there are so many different ways we can imagine it.”
Since August, rehearsals have run daily from 3:30-6:30 p.m., with Saunders guiding students through the play line by line, breaking down the meaning before putting the performance on its feet. His goal is to help actors move beyond reciting Shakespeare’s words to fully embodying them, something that has proved both challenging and rewarding.
“Pretty much every time we stage a scene, we read through the text and talk through the meaning – the explicit and the implicit,” Saunders said. “That helped a lot. And then there are some pieces of meaning that become clear as you start working on the play.”
The result of this process, he said, is a cast that has grown steadily more confident and expressive. One of his favorite rehearsal memories came when Liasos was struggling to capture Hermia’s fiery anger.
“I had her start pushing Demetrius around the stage – literally pushing him on both shoulders,” Saunders said. “And it kind of gave her permission to be angry. She just lit up after that.”
Those kinds of moments, where students discover new layers in their characters, are what make “Midsummer” so special. For Liasos, those discoveries have come with humor and plenty of teamwork.
“A lot of us make Quizlets,” she said. “I think I’ve made two or three – on my lines and some other people’s lines – just so we can quiz each other. And if we really can’t understand something, we go to Mr. Saunders and he explains it. That got us a lot more comfortable throughout the process.”
As opening night approaches, Liasos hopes audiences will see both the humor and the heart in the performance.
“I hope they think it’s funny,” she said. “I hope they understand what’s happening. But I really hope that they see that we’re telling this story through our eyes, and through what it means to us.”
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Performances of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” will run from 7-9 p.m. Nov. 6–8 and Nov. 13–15 at St. Francis Catholic High School in Sacramento. Tickets are available on the St. Francis website. Ticket link: https://stfranciscatholic.ticketspice.com/a-midsummer-nights-dream
