News from Mark Mitton

Last night was the official opening of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”. It was one of those gorgeous New York summer nights. During the show, when Puck was in Titania’s bower, we saw a bright green shooting star in the sky right behind him! It looked like a special effect.

The reviews came out today in all the newspapers. They were all great. The New York Times mentioned the magic in the first paragraph.

Special thank-you’s go out to Roger Mayfarth of the D’Lite Company who so generously provided the illuminated thumbs that were used by the Fairies throughout the production, and to Hiroshi Kondo of Tenyo Magic in Japan who provided the dancing hankies that were used by the Mechanicals.

Here are a couple of photos from the opening party at the Belvedere Castle, just up the hill from the Delacorte Theater.

With director Dan Sullivan, who is going to be the new artistic director of the Manhattan Theatre Club after this.

The young Fairies were very excited about their first big show. Simon Garratt (Mustardseed) and I were playing with our glowing thumbs.

This weekend I performed at an educational conference for an organization called Big Picture. They run 50 experimental public schools all around the US, in the Netherlands and in Australia. I did a stage show for the school teachers and principals in the morning, to get everybody excited. In the afternoon, they had Stedman Graham, a.k.a. “Oprah Winfrey’s boyfriend”, as the keynote speaker. It just so happens that my brother John went to college with Stedman. Apparently, Stedman used to be quite an athlete, and he had this incredible afro. His nickname at the time was “Wildman”. My brother played in the pep band. John sent over this picture from his yearbook, and the conference organizers showed it before Stedman gave his talk.

Can you pick out Oprah’s boyfriend?

Stedman today.