A Midsummer Night's Dream inspired by the play, that was first performed in 1827. In 1842, partly because of the fame of the overture, and partly because his employer King Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia liked the incidental music that Mendelssohn had written for other plays that had been staged at the palace in German translation, Mendelssohn was commissioned to write incidental music for a production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" that was to be staged in 1843 in Potsdam. He incorporated the existing Overture into the incidental music, which was used in most stage versions through the 19th century. The best known of
A Midsummer Night's Dream outdoor production starring Eric Hoffmann as Puck, with Karen Hurley as Titania and Eric Conger as Oberon, directed by company founder Gloria Skurski. There have been several variations since then, including some set in the 1980s. The Maryland Shakespeare Players at University of Maryland staged a queer production in 2015 where the lovers were same-sex couples and the mechanicals were drag queens. The University of Michigan's Nichols Arboretum's programme Shakespeare in the Arb has presented a play every summer since 2001. Shakespeare in the Arb has produced "A Midsummer Night's Dream" three times. These performances take place in a natural