It's Arboretum Time -- Dmetrius Conley returns to SummerFest!

This year, SummerFest brings you a delightful trio of familiar works by the masters.  

Below you will find cast lists for A Midsummer Night's Dream and Legally Blonde: The Musical. The cast list for A Streetcar Named Desire will be available soon.  After a record turnout for auditions, the decisions were tough to make, but choices were made, and here are the casts, those who along with the crew have been toiling in the hottest sun of the hottest summer we've seen in a long time (and last year was such a hottie) to bring a smile, a frown, a tear, a laugh, and applause to your theatre experience.

I'll be back in KimmyVille with interviews from folks working to bring you quality outdoor theatre, but in case you're curious, here are some names to go along with the titles, beginning with my friend, Dmetrius Conley-Williams at the top of the list, as the Harvard graduate returns to bring his distinguished Shakespearean style to the Arboretum stage:

A Midsummer Night's Dream:

Theseus: Dmetrius Conley-Williams

Hippolyta: Sarah Humble

Lysander: Chris Floyd

Hermia: Kim Dixon

Egeus: Tim Soulis

Demetrius: William Drane

Helena: Meredith Crutcher

Philostrate: Mark Smith

Quince: Jacob Karnes

Bottom: Eric Seale

Flute: Cameron Taylor

Snug: John Stith

Snout: Clayton Winstead

Starveling: Gareth Evans

Oberon: Matt Seckman

Titania: Bianca Spriggs

Puck: Joe Fields-Elswick

Boy: Jackson Becker

Fairies/Naturals:

Harper Toney

Tynesea Watts

Mariah Mowbray

Sarah Webb

Alex Francke

Beza Chavez

Brianna Mayo

Jonah Robinson

A Streetcar Named Desire

Stanley Kowalski: Evan Bergman

Stella Kowalski: Ellie Clark

Blanche DuBois: Bess Morgan

Negro Woman/Mexican Woman: Sharonda Lynn Piersall

Eunice Hubbell: Susan Wigglesworth

Steve Hubbell: Darius Fatemi

Harold Mitchell (Mitch): Timothy Hull

Young Collector: Rob Schrader

Doctor: Jeff Sherr

Nurse: Angela Williams

Legally Blonde: The Musical

ELLE - Ellie Todd

MARGOT - Stephanie Valentino

SERENA - Meghan Sharrard

PILAR - Sarah Smith

EMMETT - Miles Sullivan

PAULETTE - Vanessa Becker

CALLAHAN - Tom Gibbs

WARNER - Matt Elmore

VIVIENNE - Kayla Bryan

BROOKE - Alicia Cox

ENID - Rebecca Keith

CHUTNEY/MANAGER/GREEK CHORUS - Courtney Schuette

PADAMADAN/CARLOS - Adam Razavi

NIKOS - TBA

AARON - Colton Ryan

ELLE’S MOM/BOOKISH CLIENT - Alicia Henning

ELLE’S DAD - Whit Whitaker

WINTHROP - Chris Baker

PFORZHEIMER - Will Bradley

LOWELL- Forrest Loueffler

GRANDMASTER CHAD/KYLE/DEWEY - Neil Phelps

KATE/GREEK CHORUS– Paige Mason

GAELEN/GREEK CHORUS – Maggie Owens

LEILANI/WHITNEY- Bethany Finley

DELTA NU’S/GREEK CHORUS: 

McKenna Slone

Fiona Mowbray

Emma Becker

more from

KENTUCKY CONSERVATORY THEATRE:

"Assemble 45 actors, 40 technicians, 25 staff members, a stage newly built each summer, three compelling plays, wonderful sponsors, 12,000 enthusiastic audience members, and you will have an idea of the magnitude and degree of pure fun that invades the University of Kentucky’s Arboretum for three weeks each July. This wonderful creature is SUMMERFEST."

SummerFest is Lexington’s vital and compelling Summer Theatre experience. It began about twenty-eight years ago as The Lexington Shakespeare Festival, and in 2007, under a new Board of Directors and staff, became Summerfest, one of the region’s oldest continually operating Summer Theatre experiences. It is an experience that has our audience eagerly anticipating each new season, often stopping and asking staff and actors on the street what the new season will bring and when will tickets go on sale. We have seen two and three generations of many families out under the stars, enjoying a picnic basket, perhaps a little wine, and some of the best theatre that this area has to offer.

Over the years SummerFest has presented many of William Shakespeare’s comedies, histories, and tragedies. We have mounted more modern classics such as TO KILL A MOCKING BIRD, THE MIRACLE WORKER, FRANKENSTEIN, CYRANO de BERGERAC, THE CRUCIBLE, LORD OF THE FLIES, and INHERIT THE WIND. Beginning about ten or so years ago, SummerFest also became a presenter of musicals. RENT, JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR, ONCE ON THIS ISLAND, THE ROCKY HORROR SHOW, FIDDLER ON THE ROOF, to name a few, have all shared their special worlds with our audiences. We believe that each summer we present a variety of shows that will surely please all tastes, and the quality is such that our audiences will discover that they cannot stay away.

It must also be said that SummerFest works every summer to incorporate many of the young people who are participating in the Kentucky Conservatory Theatre’s summer intensive theatre workshop experience. In fact, it must be said that KCT and SummerFest are very much joined at the hip in terms of providing performing and technical opportunities for both experienced actors and the young members of the conservatory. We are, so to speak, “paying forward” the training and performing experiences of those who have or will have participated in the conservatory. We can now say that many of the young actors who worked as interns or played small roles-and, yes, some big roles-have gone out into the world of theatre and do return to grace SummerFest’s stage. It is a wonderful thing to see how a young actor played Juliet here one summer and has just earned a recurring role on the BBC’s Downton Abbey!

We at SummerFest know that all of you will thrill to this compelling outdoor, live theatre experience and will surely want to mark your calendars so as not to miss next year’s SummerFest. Please enjoy the summer with us!