The first Shakespeare play opening up Santa Cruz Shakespeare’s 2025 season later this month is “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” directed by Paul Mullins.

The Sentinel sat down with Mullins after a day’s work of rehearsal to discuss his approach to one of the Bard’s most beloved comedies.

Q Do you have a preference as far as tragedy, comedy?

A They offer different pleasures and different kinds of satisfaction. It’s a wonderful thing to explore the tragedies, comedies and the romances, because they’re told differently. You hope to get out of the way and let Shakespeare’s words do the work, but they do ask for different things from the actors, designers and directors, and I enjoy those differences.

Q What about “Midsummer”? Is this your first time directing this play?

A I directed it once in a university for an MFA program a long time ago, so it feels like the first time. But for many of us, especially people in the theater who have spent time with Shakespeare, you end up knowing this play. I have enjoyed trying to come to the play remembering less so that the play could speak to me again rather than just speak to me through my memories.

Q How do you see the play in a fresh way?

A Your experience is there. I try to enjoy the value of that and also to let it speak to me. It’s fresh, because we have a wonderful company of actors and designers and everyone who works here.The play is about many kinds of people, but one of the central plots is about young people in love. It’s fun to be with the young actors who don’t have as much experience with this play.

It’s also about different ages of people, like the King and the Queen of fairies. They’re not a new relationship. They seem to be immortal in some ways. Then there’s Theseus and Hippolyta, and they hardly know each other at all. They’ve met in the wars. She’s the prize for having won. And theirs is a brand new kind of knowing one another. It’s interesting to have people embodying these different roles, and to see how they tell this story from their own experience.Q What do you enjoy most about this play?

A Theseus talks about how the lover, the poet and the madman all share this compact of being out of their mind. The lovers see the world in a way that someone who’s not freshly in love doesn’t see it, the poet sees things differently and finds ways to put that imagination into words and the madman sees things differently but does not understand what they see. But, they all share something together. It’s a great part of what the play’s about: dreams.

It’s a dream. Whose dream is it? It’s ours. We watch it and things don’t make sense. When you turn around and the whole place is new, or when you look back and someone has become an animal, it’s a dream. These things should be, in some ways, out of our ability to interpret any more than we do our dreams. I hope that everybody who’s watching it has an interpretation of what they saw that is their own.

Q What is your philosophy of directing?

A I spent the first part of my professional life as an actor. You’re given words on a page, and you have to figure it out. How do I best take these words, make them mine, and say them to tell the story as clearly and as truthfully as I can? As a director, I hope that I’m getting out of the way. I’m here to facilitate a bunch of people telling a story.

You know, for years and years, there was no such thing as a director. All the actors got together and they figured out how they were going to do it. I’m happy to be a director. I like authority and I like the challenge of leading; but, it’s a collaboration. I want it to be what all these people have brought to the table. It’s so interesting to watch, because at first it’s an awkward thing, and then it just becomes truthful. Things start to happen and you’re there to say, yes, yes, more of that, less of that, but more than anything, I let it develop, let it grow, let it happen.

And that’s true of all the elements of the design. On opening night, it’s not what I thought it would be. I don’t think it’s what any of those other people thought it would be. It’s something we all made together, and that’s why I like it.

Q Why is theater important to you?

A The thing I like about what we do is that ultimately I’ll leave. I don’t have control of this. Those actors and that stage manager control what happens. We’ve all made a plan, but it will change; it will grow. It’s a living thing; it’s a living story. The people who come to see it make it different. Depending on how an audience responds, what the day is like, what happened in the world, all of those things make a difference.

You can see a TV show or a movie and the same thing is true, except that no matter what is happening to you on that day, the movie won’t change. Plays are different because everybody on that stage had a thing happen to them today.

In these troubled times, I like to believe that there’s something good about sitting in a room or sitting outside and telling a story about what it is to be alive, what it is to be a human being, and what it is to live. And I think it’s important that we do it. I’m glad I found something that made me feel like I offered something, gave something and enjoyed doing it.

Tickets are now on sale for Santa Cruz Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” opening July 18 at 8 p.m. at The Audrey Stanley Grove in DeLaveaga Park, 501 Upper Park Road, Santa Cruz. The Shakespeare classic is set to run July 13 to Aug. 31. Visit santacruzshakespeare.org for tickets and information.