Award-winning actress and audiobook narrator Marni Penning, nicknamed "The Maven of a Million Voices" by actor and producer Steven Jay Cohen, brings her considerable talent to a full production of A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare, where she -- one woman -- plays all the characters.

Marni is a co-founder of Cincinnati Shakespeare Company and has performed in 54 productions of 23 of Shakespeare's plays in her decades-long career, including leading roles at the Shakespeare Theatre and Folger Theatre in Washington, DC, as well as regional theatres across the United States and on stages in England and Scotland. She toured for three years with what is now The American Shakespeare Center, racking up thousands of performances to hundreds of thousands of people.

Marni's favorite Shakespearean roles have been the title role in Hamlet (from which her moniker "The Lady Hamlet" was coined), and multiple turns at Beatrice, Lady Mac, and Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Act Three will be uploaded next week... stay tuned!

Created and performed by Marni Penning.

Engineering by John Detty of Detty Studios.

Original music by SZG.

Text adapted from Project Gutenberg.

This podcast has been recorded as a gift to English Teachers everywhere, to give them a free, accessible audio version of Shakespeare's plays that their students can listen to anywhere, at any time.

Please pass this link along to any teachers you know.

Enjoy!