Staff photo / Andy Gray
Joe Toto, left, is Oberon and Al McKinnon is Puck in Kent State University at Trumbull Theatre’s production of William Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” which opens Friday in the Technology Building.

William Shakespeare wrote, “All the world’s a stage,” and Kent State University at Trumbull Campus is taking him literally, transforming the campus’s Technology Building atrium into a performance space.

With Kent-Trumbull’s theater undergoing renovations, the theater department needed to find an alternate location for its spring production of the Bard’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

“We had a lot of options,” said Peter Byrne, who is directing the production and playing Theseus. “There’s, of course, the big lecture hall on campus. There was some discussion of doing it at several locations off campus. Then we just sort of discovered the space of the atrium. I walked in, and I immediately said, ‘This is the space I want to do it in.’

“It’s almost a theater-in-the-round situation, which we don’t have the opportunity to do in the main theater. It’s a really interesting space visually. There’s a lot of room for people to move around in. There’s a lot of challenges too, obviously. But as soon as I walked into the space, I said, ‘Oh, we can do something really special here.'”

Byrne is a Shakespeare scholar who has written scripts for the Shakespeare Theatre Company’s “Will on the Hill” benefit in Washington, D.C., and published the short story collection “Offstage Voices,” which features stories about characters from Shakespeare’s plays and focuses on events that occurred before or after those works. He’s appeared in many of Kent-Trumbull’s Shakespeare productions, but this is the first time he’s directed there.

He described “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” as a no-brainer choice for that directing debut.

“It’s his most delightful play,” Byrne said. “I wanted something that was, in many ways, a guaranteed hit. It’s almost impossible to do a bad production of ‘Midsummer.’

“I also was thinking in terms of roles for students, roles for young people in the community, roles for older people in the community. It’s a big cast, and there’s something for just about everybody, so that’s a major attraction of midsummer. It’s a very inclusive play, there’s just something that appeals universally, and you wind up having a terrific cast as a result.”

The cast features Harmon Andrews, Jessica Ludivici, Rachael Conrad, Parker Paniagua, Bethany Yamaner, Leona Chapline, Al McKinnon, Jenna Cintavey, Deborah Byrne, Dakota Smith, Nate Chapline, Jonathan Bahrey, Joe Toto, Christine Fowler, Lauren Stewart, Ayla Chapline, Emma Woodyard, Jessica Marsh-Taylor, Popee McKinnon, Peter Byrne, Tony Kovacic and Emily Cheeseman.

The mix includes frequent Kent-Trumbull performers and some people like McKinnon, Toto and Fowler, who used to be regulars at the college theater but have performed there less frequently in recent years. Retired technical director Kovacic had been a fixture behind the scenes for years, but this will be his first time on stage in more than 40 years.

“One of the most gratifying aspects of directing this show has been the people from the past who, because they know me and because they love Shakespeare, have been willing to come out of retirement to show up,” Byne said. “We’ve got some great young people coming in, and we’ve got some older hands who are able to introduce them to Kent-Trumbull Theatre.

“I don’t think it’s quite a passing of the torch, because I hope these people will stick around for later productions, but it is bringing them in and sort of showing the others what’s really special about Kent-Trumbull Theatre.”

The atrium will be able to seat about 90 people for the comedy of romantic entanglements, mistaken identities and magic potions.

“It’s a farce, so I’ve got people running in and running off, and now I’ve got four different directions for them to run in and run off from,” Byrne said. “It really opens up a lot of movement, which, again, really lends itself to the farcical aspect of it … The in-the-round experience puts the audience in the space in a much more immersive way, and I really like that.”

With a minimal set and lighting options, Byrne relied on the sound design by Joe Toto and the costumes by Jojo Garcia and Kat Roman (with Valerie Kuehn constructing Bottom’s donkey head) to immerse the audience into the story.

“I really wanted to go all in on the costumes,” he said. “I said to my cast, ‘I know that nothing makes an actor happier than a terrific costume, and that’s what I want for all of you.'”

The costuming reflects the triangular nature of the story, which straddles the worlds of the fairies, the four lovers and the mechanicals, the troupe of actors who are preparing a play.

Byrne wanted the mechanicals to look very down-to-earth, modern and relatable.

“I want the fairies to be absolutely timeless, he said. I want them to look not human and eternal, just creatures of pure magic. I said, ‘Let your imagination fly, and then let it fly even a little bit more.’ So they’re having a lot of fun with that.”

For the lovers and for the courtiers, they settled on an Edwardian style.

“I want them to be wearing too many clothes at all times, because that’s part of the joke of the play, having these overdressed, overly mannered, overly controlled people thrown into the wild, magical nature, and their true selves are exposed from underneath all of these heavy layers of clothing.”

If you go …

WHAT: “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”

WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday through April 13

WHERE: Technology Building, Kent State University at Trumbull, 4314 Mahoning Ave. NW, Champion

HOW MUCH: Tickets are $10 for adults, $8 for students and senior citizens and $6 for children ages 12 and younger and are available online at www.kent.edu/trumbull/theatre and by calling 330-675-8887.