How to engage interest in the opening of A Midsummer Night's Dream

The opening of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The opening exchange between Theseus and Hippolyta is used. Read through it with your students and then read through the adapted version based on a modern day scenario. The adapted version shows how the core message in the language of Shakespeare can still be related to today. It is not, of course possible to spend the time going so carefully through every line of the play but to begin the play with such a close examination and adaptation alerts the students to the richness and relevance of Shakespeare’s language.