The Dream

About

The Dream is Frederick Ashton's one-act ballet adaptation of William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. The 2026 presentation is included in American Ballet Theatre's Fall program An Elegy and A Dream, with performances scheduled at David H. Koch Theater in New York. The production transfers Shakespeare's comedy of errors to the magical woods of Victorian England. Its central artistic concept is a ballet treatment of love as an unstable or illusory force, expressed through Ashton's choreography and Felix Mendelssohn's score. Sets and costumes are by David Walker, lighting is by John B. Read, and the work is staged by Sir Anthony Dowell and Christopher Carr. No cast has been published for the 2026 performances.