William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Nights Dream and L. Frank Baum's The Wizard Of Oz

William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Nights Dream and L. Frank Baum's The Wizard Of Oz

L. Frank Baum is the author of one of the most magical fairy tales

ever brought to our screens. A series of books were written and in

1939 created into a film. It was a masterpiece that was to be one of

the biggest films ever made, enjoyed by children and adults all over

the world. There are many reasons why this film has the element of

magic, one of the reasons I found when researching was that this film

did not only have one director, but several, Victor Fleming was the

main director but for personal reasons other directors were bought in,

Richard Thorpe and King Vidor. With the three imaginations of these

geniuses a classic was born. The story of 'The Wizard Of Oz' is a

story of a young girl whose imagination creates a world 'Somewhere

over the Rainbow.' Choosing to take L. Franks Baum's ideas and do the

Wizard of Oz for out Children's theater was an easy choice as all of

us had grown up watching the film and singing the songs. We wanted to

create a magic that the kids would become enchanted by, for this magic

we turned to 'A Midsummer Nights Dream'.

'A Midsummer Nights Dream was written in 1595 by William Shakespeare.

William Shakespeare's legendary status as a man of the theatre has

crossed time and place. Respected as an artist of considerable merit

in his own time, his reputation has expanded in the more than four

hundred years since his birth to classify him as one of the greatest

writers who has ever lived.So it should be no surprise that although

it isn't a story read by children, (because of the Shakespearean

language used.) we turned to M...

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...r the Lion, two emotions that the film its self

conjures up.

There is a main theme that connects a play that was written during a

time of war and killing and a play that was written over 400 hundred

years ago, dreams. Things have changed, year after year, since The

Wizard Of Oz was made into a movie things have dramatically changed

but one thing that remains, is that we all dream, no matter how old,

young, childish or mature we are. Our imaginations are let lose as we

are sleeping, this is why everyone can identify in someway between a

midsummer nights dream and The wizard of oz. Another common theme

comes at the end of both plays, was it a dream or was it a reality? A

question that is never answered in either plays, this gives children a

chance to make up there own minds, leaving the stories with them for

years.