Stage Fright on a Summer Night is the twenty-fifth installment to the Magic Tree House series. The book is preceded by Earthquake in the Early Morning and succeeded by Good Morning, Gorillas.
Synopsis[]
Jack and Annie travel in their magic tree house to Elizabethan London, where they become actors in a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream and try to rescue a tame bear.
Chapters[]
- Special Magic
- London Bridge
- The Bear Garden
- A Midsummer Night's Dream
- Stage Fright
- Onstage!
- In the Forest, in the Night
- The Most Important Person
- Sweet Sorrow
- Our Will?
Plot[]
One summer night, as Jack and Annie watched some fireflies, Annie saw what looked like a shooting star. They hurried to the magic tree house where they found Morgan. After they helped Camelot so many times, like with King Arthur, she decided it was time for them to do something for themselves. They were going to learn special magic. For their first adventure, she gave them this rhyme:
To find a special magic,
You must step into the light
And without wand, spell, or charm,
Turn daytime into night.
Then Morgan disappeared, leaving them a research book entitled, Merry Olde England.
The tree house landed in 1600, where Queen Elizabeth the First ruled England. There was a river with many boats in it with a giant stone bridge crossing it, it contained a small town. It was London Bridge across the Thames, which fell down a lot through history. The Thames smelt horrible, but the residents didn’t seem to mind. Some kids were running towards something, so Jack and Annie followed them. They walked through a market and ended up in Bear Garden, where bears fought dogs for entertainment. One “dancing” bear was named Dan, Jack didn’t want Annie getting in trouble for releasing him. He took her where the big kids went: a theater showing A Midsummer Night’s Dream. As Jack read the research book aloud, a man named William heard him. Seeing his skill, he said they can play two fairies in the play to save it, their actors didn’t show up. However, Annie must pretend to be a boy as due to laws, boys must play women.
Behind the stage with all the other actors Will gave the two outfits, green tunics. Annie hid her pigtails behind her hat. Jack noticed that his scroll had lots of lines for him, much to his dismay. A man named Puck took them to the stage and gave them instructions, but he warns Jack that the groundlings, the ones without seat, might be rude and throw fruit. This was the last straw for Jack, he tried to excuse himself by faking an illness, but Will told him to believe he was really in the play.
This gave Jack the confidence he needed to follow Puck, he felt the summer night. Will praised, then “Andy” performed well with the fairy queen. The two thought the play was funny, especially when the queen put a spell on the king and Puck got a donkey head. Soon they all took a bow, Queen Elizabeth was very pleased by the performance. She said that this was the magic of theater, which made Jack realize that this was the magic Morgan intended them to learn.
Annie showed Jack that she freed Dan the dancing bear and disguised him. As the owner appeared, Will and Puck chewed him out for this, Will gave him money to buy Dan so he could be part of this play. After Will was alone with the kids again, he gave them Jack’s bag and the scrolls they read. He then offered row them back to the tree house and also revealed that Queen Elizabeth never looked in a mirror so she just pretends to be young and beautiful. In other words, all the world’s a stage. They were sad to leave Will, but the kids had to go.
After reading Morgan’s note again, Jack and Annie were from to learn theater magic. They then read the scrolls from Will, which thanked them and revealed that his full name is William Shakespeare! Jack was amazed that they got the autograph of one of the greatest writers of all time. They decided to leave the scrolls there as proof that they learned the magic.