Enjoy dinner and a special performance of Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” performed by the Rustic Mechanicals at Graceland Inn at Davis & Elkins College at 6 p.m. Saturday, June 20. The Rustic Mechanicals are the only professional Shakespeare troupe in West Virginia, and they will bring their “Howl at the Moon” tour to various audiences throughout the state this summer.

Such opportunities to see high-energy performances of Shakespeare plays are both fun and educational.

As an advanced placement English teacher, I would look for summer theater experiences to offer my students. Many adults, who have had frustrating experiences with English literature, think Shakespeare is too stuffy and elitist, but Jason Young and his thespians do everything possible to make the great Bard of Avon available to West Virginians.

Students of English dialects, who have studied the West Virginia lexicon, may say it behooves us to learn that many Elizabethan words are still out yonder in these hills. Some linguists believe that the way we pronounce vowels may be more like what Shakespeare might have said himself. He lived before English courtiers began to say “PAATH” and “BAATH” with a more European vowel sound after the Renaissances. In other words, we Hill Billies may have a dialect that sounds more like the greatest English poet’s speech because our ancestors got out of England just in time.

As a lover of human languages and a student of American dialects, I enjoy hearing the humanity of various local speakers in this country. Dialect is a subtle social marker, but many people who do not speak standard English are much smarter than some English teachers may think.

My mother always told us that people in West Virginia spoke something like Elizabethan English, but most Shakespearean actors try to copy the Victorians. They lose the real flavor of our local heritage, and our students do not feel comfortable with Shakespeare’s language. I am glad that Jason Young and the Rustic Mechanicals are bringing the Bard’ plays back to us.

Human love is never really simple, but “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” is a romantic comedy imagining love’s most capricious possibilities and fantastical foolishness. Shakespeare’s wedding celebration goes from the ridiculous to the sublime fabulous flights of vocabulary.

If your family budget cannot afford each dinner and play at Graceland in June, there are other places and later times to see “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” It will play Thursday and Friday, July 30-31 from 7-9 p.m. at the VCT Cabaret, 305 Washington St. Clarksburg. Then Sunday, August 30th 3-5 p.m. at Midtown on Main in Philippi. The drive is longer, but the “Dream” may also be seen at West Edge Factory in Huntington, Sunday, Aug. 2. Check in advance for prices

Check on Facebook to see the times and place where the undaunted West Virginia thespians are putting on plays like “The Winter’s Tale” and “The Taming of the Shrew.”