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A Midsummer Night's Dream: Fully Dramatized Audio Edition
- Narrated by: full cast
- Length: 2 hrs and 7 mins
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Publisher's summary
Folger Shakespeare Library, The World’s Leading Center for Shakespeare Studies
The Folger Shakespeare Library, home to the world's largest Shakespeare collection, brings A Midsummer Night's Dream to life with this new full-length, full-cast dramatic recording of its definitive Folger Edition.
In A Midsummer Night's Dream, Shakespeare stages the workings of love in unexpected ways. In the woods outside Athens, two young men and two young women sort themselves into couples - but not before they form first one love triangle, and then another. The king and queen of fairyland, Oberon and Titania, battle over custody of an orphan boy. Oberon uses magic to make Titania fall in love with a weaver named Bottom, in an effort to distract Titania from the custody battle. While all of this is going on, Bottom and his companions ineptly stage the tragedy of "Pyramus and Thisbe".
This new full-cast recording - based on the most respected edition of Shakespeare’s classic - expertly produced by the Folger Theatre, is perfect for students, teachers, and the everyday listener.
Featured Article: 50+ Timeless Shakespeare Quotes
From knock-knock jokes to the wild goose chase, we owe many of our most-used and best-loved phrases to the talent of the Bard. His words are timeless in their direct wisdom, their witty humor, and their surprising applicability to modern life: its nature, its purpose, and its pitfalls. We’ve collected some of our favorite William Shakespeare quotes for when you want to think about life’s big questions, wax poetic on the nature of love, or just need a good laugh. Immerse yourself in these Shakespeare quotes to dive into the comedies and tragedies penned by the Bard of Avon.
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In the heart of the South Pacific lies Point Nemo, the most desolate and remote place on Earth. At its core is a dead zone, devoid of life, where government agencies crash their obsolete satellites and space stations, confident they won't harm a soul. When the International Space Station suffers a catastrophic failure and plummets through the atmosphere, it's here that Mission Specialist Julie Rohr, an astrobiologist studying living space dust called xylem, finds herself marooned. Julie's only hope for rescue lies in the hands of her estranged father, Dr. Finn Maddern, a renowned mycologist.
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Preachy Indoctrination
- By Tantor on 05-27-24
By: Jeremy Robinson
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Home Is Where the Bodies Are
- By: Jeneva Rose
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- Length: 8 hrs and 27 mins
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After their mother passes, three estranged siblings reunite to sort out her estate. Beth, the oldest, never left home. She stayed with her mom, caring for her until the very end. Nicole, the middle child, has been kept at arm’s length due to her ongoing battle with a serious drug addiction. Michael, the youngest, lives out of state and hasn’t been back to their small Wisconsin town since their father ran out on them seven years before.
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Perfect Audio.
- By Black Women Read Too on 05-19-24
By: Jeneva Rose
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Fahrenheit 451
- By: Ray Bradbury
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- Length: 5 hrs and 1 min
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Guy Montag is a fireman. In his world, where television rules and literature is on the brink of extinction, firemen start fires rather than put them out. His job is to destroy the most illegal of commodities, the printed book, along with the houses in which they are hidden. Montag never questions the destruction and ruin his actions produce, returning each day to his bland life and wife, Mildred, who spends all day with her television "family."
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Wish I Hadn't Cliff Noted This in High School
- By Joel on 03-27-17
By: Ray Bradbury
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Dracula [Audible Edition]
- By: Bram Stoker
- Narrated by: Alan Cumming, Tim Curry, Simon Vance, and others
- Length: 15 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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The modern audience hasn't had a chance to truly appreciate the unknowing dread that readers would have felt when reading Bram Stoker's original 1897 manuscript. Most modern productions employ campiness or sound effects to try to bring back that gothic tension, but we've tried something different. By returning to Stoker's original storytelling structure - a series of letters and journal entries voiced by Jonathan Harker, Dr. Van Helsing, and other characters - with an all-star cast of narrators, we've sought to recapture its originally intended horror and power.
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IS THAT NOT SO?
- By Jim "The Impatient" on 11-05-15
By: Bram Stoker
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Gray
- The Complete Collection
- By: Lou Cadle
- Narrated by: Lauren Fortgang
- Length: 24 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Pre-med student Coral is on vacation in Idaho when something terrible happens. The black cloud is followed by a wildfire and searing heat that lasts for days. She survives deep in a cave but emerges days later to find the world transformed, with blackened trees, an ash-filled sky, and no living creatures stirring - except for her. So begins her desperate journey to find water and food and other survivors...and the answer to the mystery of what happened.
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Great Story - Superb Value
- By Kurt Schwoppe on 11-05-17
By: Lou Cadle
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Frankenstein
- By: Mary Shelley
- Narrated by: Dan Stevens
- Length: 8 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Narrator Dan Stevens ( Downton Abbey) presents an uncanny performance of Mary Shelley's timeless gothic novel, an epic battle between man and monster at its greatest literary pitch. In trying to create life, the young student Victor Frankenstein unleashes forces beyond his control, setting into motion a long and tragic chain of events that brings Victor to the very brink of madness. How he tries to destroy his creation, as it destroys everything Victor loves, is a powerful story of love, friendship, scientific hubris, and horror.
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ARE WE ALWAYS TO BE UNHAPPY?
- By Jim "The Impatient" on 01-28-16
By: Mary Shelley
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Macbeth, one of Shakespeare's most popular plays, is among the most powerful and influential tragedies in the English language. Promised a golden future as ruler of Scotland by three sinister witches, Macbeth murders the king in order to succeed to the throne. Tortured by his conscience and fearful of discovery, he becomes fatally enmeshed in a web of treachery and deceit.
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excellent
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A very Americanized production
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Loved the voice actors
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At least it's Shakespeare
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excellent
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A very Americanized production
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Need
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The Tempest
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Gandalf is great
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Lovers lives are complicated by city law, feuding faerie royalty, and, yes, love. Sir Ian McKellen, Prunella Scales, Frank Duncan, and Joan Hart perform Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.
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WONDERFUL!
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BBC Radio Shakespeare: A Collection of Eight Comedies
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A collection of BBC Radio 3's iconic Shakespeare productions: eight comedies with all-star casts including David Tennant, Helena Bonham Carter, Anne-Marie Duff, Martin Jarvis, Siân Phillips and Miriam Margolyes. The plays included in this collection are: Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like It, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Merchant of Venice, Twelfth Night, The Tempest, The Taming of the Shrew, and All's Well That Ends Well.
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Not told entirely
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Great Dramatization!
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Infamously known as the cursed Scottish play, Macbeth is perhaps Shakespeare’s darkest tragedy. When General Macbeth is foretold by three witches that he will one day be King of Scotland, Lady Macbeth convinces him to get rid of anyone who could stand in his way – including committing regicide. As Macbeth ascends to the throne through bloody murder, he becomes a tyrant consumed by fear and paranoia.
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Might want to Read Along
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No Fear Shakespeare: A Midsummer Night's Dream
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Don’t be intimidated by Shakespeare! These popular guides make the Bard’s plays accessible and enjoyable.
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Umm…it’s okay
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By: SparkNotes
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The Merchant of Venice
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In Shakespeare's most controversial play, the opposing values of justice and mercy must be resolved. Antonio promises money to help his friend Bassanio woo Portia. He borrows the sum needed from the cruel Shylock, but there will be a dreadful penalty if the loan is not repaid. The golden world of Portia's Belmont calls forth some of Shakespeare's most lyrical love poetry. But the dark shadow of Shylock is never far from the heart of this brilliant comedy as it moves toward its courtroom climax.
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One Of Shakespeare's Best
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A collection of BBC Radio 3's iconic Shakespeare productions: six tragedies with all star casts including Michael Sheen, Juliet Stevenson, Kenneth Cranham, Corin Redgrave, Ken Stott, Geraldine James, Bill Wallis, Siân Phillips and Sophie Dahl.
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missing important parts
- By raphael turra sprenger on 11-10-21
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Twelfth Night
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Shakespeare's most sophisticated comedy is a riotous tale of hopelessly unrequited passions and mistaken identity. Duke Orsino is in love with the noblewoman Olivia. She, however, has fallen for his servant Cesario, who is actually Viola, a woman disguised as a man, who loves Orsino: Confusion is rife. Meanwhile, Olivia's arrogant steward Malvolio is cruelly tricked by her uncle Sir Toby Belch, his friend Sir Andrew Aguecheek, and the maidservant Maria into believing his mistress loves him.
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If you be not mad, be gone
- By Darwin8u on 08-24-17
What listeners say about A Midsummer Night's Dream: Fully Dramatized Audio Edition
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- naplesinsider
- 01-01-18
Surprisingly Entertaining
I had to read for an assingment and did not expect to like it but actually really enjoyed it. The actors were really good and the reading brought to life and helped me pay attention
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1 person found this helpful
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- T. W. Akins
- 04-24-20
A Mid Summer Nights Dream
Was tremendous. The readers were great and very professional. A great play to listen to and see. Tks
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2 people found this helpful
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- R. MCRACKAN
- 07-05-22
Perfect for audio
Shakespeare was obviously written for the stage so audio-only is a tall order, especially on text which is already so difficult to parse. This performance does a great job!
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- Amazon Customer
- 10-25-16
wow! just wow!
to listen to, to read along, and understand was what made this happen. great audio!
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1 person found this helpful
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- Joshua Eichenhorn
- 04-18-16
Great for Reading along to the Folger edition!
I got this dramatization because I figured it would help me read this great play if I had some people performing it while I read along. While it definitely isn't a perfect representation of what it might sound like on a stage it gives a perfect sense of the characters and humor. Recommended!
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1 person found this helpful
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- June C Klassen
- 07-17-21
Very good
Cast is excellent and the performance is true to the text. I use this version with my high school students as we study the play.
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- Arnold F. Williams
- 01-16-22
This is fun and funny.
This was one of the most enjoyable ways to spend a couple of hours I have come across. You do need a good command of older English, but if you can read the King James Bible, this won’t be that mysterious. When the peasant characters are talking, part of the humor is that they are seriously misusing almost every long word they use.
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- Anonymous User
- 07-21-23
Pure poetry and intoxication of words
“In pure poetry and the intoxication of words, Shakespeare never rose higher than he rises in this play. But in spite of this fact, the supreme literary merit of A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a merit of design. The amazing symmetry, the amazing artistic and moral beauty of that design, can be stated very briefly. The story opens in the sane and common world with the pleasant seriousness of very young lovers and very young friends. Then, as the figures advance into the tangled wood of young troubles and stolen happiness, a change and bewilderment begins to fall on them. They lose their way and their wits for they are in the heart of fairyland. Their words, their hungers, their very figures grow more and more dim and fantastic, like dreams within dreams, in the supernatural mist of Puck.
Then the dream-fumes begin to clear, and characters and spectators begin to awaken together to the noise of horns and dogs and the clean and bracing morning. Theseus, the incarnation of a happy and generous rationalism, expounds in hackneyed and superb lines the sane view of such psychic experiences, pointing out with a reverent and sympathetic skepticism that all these fairies and spells are themselves but the emanations, the unconscious masterpieces, of man himself.
The whole company falls back into a splendid human laughter. There is a rush for banqueting and private theatricals, and over all these things ripples one of those frivolous and inspired conversations in which every good saying seems to die in giving birth to another. If ever the son of a man in his wanderings was at home and drinking by the fireside, he is at home in the house of Theseus. All the dreams have been forgotten, as a melancholy dream remembered throughout the morning might be forgotten in the human certainty of any other triumphant evening party; and so the play seems naturally ended. It began on the earth and it ends on the earth. Thus to round off the whole midsummer night’s dream in an eclipse of daylight is an effect of genius.
But of this comedy, as I have said, the mark is that genius goes beyond itself; and one touch is added which makes the play colossal. Theseus and his train retire with a crashing finale, full of humor and wisdom and things set right, and silence falls on the house. Then there comes a faint sound of little feet, and for a moment, as it were, the elves look into the house, asking which is the reality. “Suppose we are the realities and they the shadows.” If that ending were acted properly any modern man would feel shaken to his marrow if he had to walk home from the theatre through a country lane. A Midsummer Night’s Dream presents the question of whether the life of waking, or the life of the vision, is the real life, the sine qua non of man.”
“Gravity easily oppresses and complicates problems whereas lightheartedness simplifies the complex and applies a magical gentleness that Shakespeare compares to the play of the fairies at night that perform their favors in the silence of sleep with no one hearing or seeing them. The problem that daytime Athens with all its business and busyness cannot solve, the nighttime world of the forests with its mirth and revels resolves in the most mysterious and hidden of ways. The king of the fairies’ love juice (from the flower love-in-idleness) that quietly anoints the eyelids of the sleeping lovers in the forest proves more miraculous than all the threats and warnings issued by the authorities of Athens invoking the letter of the law and threatening confinement to a nunnery or death by execution if Hermia does not marry Demetrius to please her father.” — G.K. Chesterton
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- Michael
- 08-25-23
A good performance of a great play
A few of the characters were weak, but the overall performance was very good.
I have generally never loved the musical interludes in this play, and this, alas, was no exception.
The play is the lightest of the comedies, and quite enjoyable.
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- Dawn M
- 07-11-20
Memories from college
As an English major, I was instantly enamoured by Shakespeare. A lovely afternoon spent reading a great classic!
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5 people found this helpful