Shakespeare wrote 36 plays and had a collaborative hand in one or two more. Among them are many masterpieces, and even the lesser works are full of wonders. Theatres that produce these plays, however, regard the canon slightly differently. For us, Shakespeare is summed up by the Golden 10: the truly famous, indisputably brilliant works that define this writer and his legacy, and that represent everything that’s glorious about him. The Golden 10 are the famous plays: Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Much Ado About Nothing, King Lear, Othello, etc. These are the ones we return to again and again and produce the most frequently. And the number one play of the Golden 10 is tonight’s work: A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

The Dream, as we theatre folk call it, is everything that makes Shakespeare, Shakespeare. It’s full of delights: breathtaking poetry, characters that are both completely idiosyncratic and also totally relatable, outlandish situations that ask us to accept that there is more to our world than what we perceive with our senses, relationships and human situations that break our hearts, and comedy so raucous and hilarious that it is unparalleled in any other form. It’s not just the perfect Shakespeare play. It’s pretty much the perfect play. No wonder the Globe keeps scheduling it: this is our 12th production of The Dream.

“The lunatic, the lover, and the poet / Are of imagination all compact,” says Duke Theseus. That line expresses something essential about this play and about Shakespeare’s worldview. There’s an overlap among the imaginations of the madman, the romantic, and the artist. Lovers act crazy, artists are romantic, madmen are creative: the boundaries separating them tend to blur. The more we can come to understand the various avatars of the human imagination, the more we can know about what it is to be alive on this planet. That’s Shakespeare’s subject here: the fact that dream logic, sexual ecstasy, delusion, and artistic creativity are all points on a single spectrum. No work of fiction understands and dramatizes this insight more succinctly, nor more beautifully, than A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Globe audiences are fortunate that tonight this play is in the hands of a director who is an expert with it. Patricia McGregor, a Resident Artist here, has staged the play a number of times, most recently in our own Globe for All Tour around San Diego in 2018. That Patricia is taking on this greatest of Shakespeare’s plays is a gift to us, but it’s also bittersweet: this will be her final work as a resident of San Diego. Just weeks ago she was appointed Artistic Director of Manhattan’s New York Theatre Workshop, one of the most important Off Broadway theatres and a nationally prominent home for excellent, field-changing work for the stage. We’ll miss her a lot, but we know she’ll do great things there that will enrich us all, and we are confident that our time collaborating together isn’t over. Great things are ahead for this spectacular theatremaker, and we’re thrilled for her.

Leaving San Diego with Patricia and their two magnificent children is her husband Freedome Bradley-Ballentine, the Globe’s Associate Artistic Director and Director of Arts Engagement. Happily, Freedome has landed an amazing job too. He’s been named Associate Artistic Director and Director of Artistic Programs at The Public Theater. It’s a huge and exciting appointment that will place him at the very top leadership tier of that consequential institution.

It’s hard to overstate the impact Freedome has made on this theatre and our city over the seven years he’s been here. Today the Globe is the national leader in bringing participatory theatre programming to community, and tens of thousands of people around San Diego County are genuinely part of our institution who were not so before. And our breathtaking range of arts engagement work is only part of what Freedome has transformed here. As a leader he has encouraged and helped build a values-based and purpose-driven culture at the Globe. As an advocate he has been a hugely powerful voice in our ongoing social justice work. As a producer he has shepherded extraordinarily beautiful and significant work to every platform the Globe has. As a colleague he’s been warm and open and funny and supportive and smart and steadfast and incisive. And as a friend he’s been cherished, adored, and valued. Freedome is a man of integrity and grace. We’ll miss him. A lot.

I can’t imagine a better send-off for this powerful and brilliant couple than a magical Shakespeare play that celebrates love, creativity, and transformation. I know that everyone in the Globe’s orbit wishes them every good thing in their adventures ahead.

Thanks for coming. Enjoy the show.