The title Close Encounters has a simple goal: after the executions and fear of Act I, the audience should leave laughing. Richard and Nick Bottom never meet in Shakespeare, but they represent the two unique faces of theatre—tragedy and comedy.

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“Plots have I laid, inductions dangerous…” In Shakespeare’s Richard, the title given Act I by the adapter/director, Richard’s victims include a king and his son, Richard’s brother, his sister-in-law’s relatives, Richard’s nephews, his allies, and even his wife. Richard is a political predator who almost never dirties his own hands. Instead, he manipulates others into murder through bribery and threats while presenting himself as a loyal brother, a lover, a friend, or a patriot. Like Iago in Othello, Richard is “I am what I am not.”

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The play is entitled Shakespeare’s Richard because William Shakespeare, writing under Tudor rule and mindful of the danger of contradicting the crown, followed the official account promoted by Sir Thomas More and Polydore Virgil—an account shaped more by propaganda than by historical fact. Shakespeare’s Richard became the villain that audiences love to hate. Whether history made him victim or monster, Shakespeare made him unforgettable—a seductive, dangerous force who turned ambition into blood sport.

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Act II of Close Encounters draws on A Midsummer Night’s Dream and spotlights the Rude Mechanicals, a band of tradespeople who try their hand at acting for the chance to win a generous prize: pensions for life. Peter Quince writes “A Tedious Brief Scene of Young Pyramus and His Love Thisbe” as a tragedy, but when these skilled craftspeople prove to be hopeless performers, solemn drama gives way to comedy. Fittingly, Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet in the same year as A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

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The play’s actors are, in addition to the writer, producer, director Peter Quince, carpenter/Prologue; Nick Bottom, weaver/Pyramus; Francis Flute, bellows mender/Thisbe; Tomasina Snout, tinker/The Wall; Robin Starveling tailor/Moonshine; and Snug, aka Snug, joiner/The Lion. The comedy builds as Bottom wants to play every role; the rehearsal falls apart in the woods and the roles are re-written; Puck and Titania’s appearances during the rehearsal cause further chaos.

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In this adaptation, the Duke and Duchess’s wedding celebrations are not the audience for “A Tedious Brief Scene of Young Pyramus and His Love Thisbe,” but the attending audience is, joined by Puck and Titania, and a talent agent named The Duke. After their win, the workers have traded drinking, pub games, and karaoke for the harder labor of acting—at least until the show is over.