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A stage full of hat racks posing as trees has enhanced Astrid Marshall's acting and opera singing.

Marshall is one of eight second-year students at the University of Maryland, College Park's, Opera Studio program taking lead roles in an operatic take on the Shakespeare classic, "A Midsummer Night's Dream," a tale of magic and intertwined romance.

Unlike most interpretations of the timeless work, Maryland students will put on a bare-bones version, absent of fanciful sets and lavish costumes, when they take the stage 7:30 tonight at the university's Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center.

Opera singers will don basic muslin costumes, hat racks will stand in for forests filled with fairies and the musical accompaniment will be a simple piano, not a grandiose orchestra that supplements the luster of "Midsummer Night's" magical, complex story.

Marshall, a soprano playing Tytania, the queen of the fairies who quarrels with King Oberon in woods on the outskirts of Athens, said the simplistic set puts a premium on performance.

"You have to make yourself look a little silly," said Marshall, 25, a Laurel resident. "You have to prepare yourself to look into a world that's not really there."

Nick Olcott, the opera's director and a lecturer in the university's Opera Studio for 11 years, agreed.

"They're under the microscope, and I think that's very demanding on them," said Olcott, who has directed seven operas and two plays at Maryland.

"I think it's a wonderful exercise for people to see how opera can be stripped down to its minimum. … They can see how simple and pure it can be."

With no background to astound audience members and no breathtaking choral arrangements to distract from on-stage miscues, second-year Opera Studio students face their most challenging performance to date. Students performed a collection of short opera scenes in the opera program's first year, an assignment, Marshall said, that came with its own set of challenges.

"Having to switch between characters is tough," she said, adding that remaining Queen Tytania throughout "Midsummer Night" has allowed her to develop the character through two months of rehearsal – three hours a day, six days a week.

"It's easier to do a whole opera rather than just go from scene to scene to scene," Marshall said. "You get more comfortable playing one character when you only have to play that character."

Shakespeare's story details the travails of Demetrius and Helena in their pursuit of lovers Hermia and Lysander.

The famous character Puck – a practical joking mystical creature who serves as Oberon's jester – crisscrosses romantic affairs and spurs chaos throughout the story.

Benjamin Britten wrote the opera version of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" – using Shakespeare's words – and Olcott said other operas void of spectacular settings have fared well.

After performing a stripped-down version of Britten's interpretation of "The Turn of The Screw," officials with the Cleveland Opera asked Olcott to direct the show at their theater.

Throwing students into a stripped-down version of a complicated Shakespeare work, Olcott said, is part of a carefully planned-out strategy among officials heading Maryland's opera program.

"Our approach is to produce singers who can generate dramatic action on their own … and don't analyze it only musically, but they also have to understand the underpinnings of drama, characters' needs and wants," Olcott said.

Second-year Maryland Opera student Christopher Newcomer, who plays King Oberon, said audience members' attention will drift if student singers performed like they would on a larger, more elaborate set.

"There's no theatre magic for us to rely on," he said. "So we have to look within ourselves."

Newcomer said perfecting pronunciation of Shakespeare's words puts added pressure on performers that has demanded nonstop practice and unwavering dedication.

"We all know Shakespeare didn't choose his words lightly," said Newcomer, 25, a Berwyn Heights resident who will sing Oberon's part in counter tenor, a rare register in modern operas. "You definitely want to respect it. … It raises the need for clarity in speech."

Eliminating color and sound from any performance is a baptism by fire – one that prepares opera students for the sometimes punishing realities of career life away from the university's ivory tower, Olcott said.

Performing an opera with a literary base, he said, forced student singers to tap their acting abilities as well as their honed singing prowess.

"After [A Midsummer Night's Dream], they don't have to be spoon fed by someone, so they can go out in the professional world," Olcott said. "We train a very independent singer who is an actor as well as a singer."

After six months of studying "Midsummer Night's" music, three weeks of one-on-one and group music coaching and two months of stage rehearsal, Marshall said the university's toned-down Shakespeare work adds to the appeal of The Bard's timeless story.

"I don't think the music takes away from the text at all," she said. "I'm in love with it. It's beautiful."

IF YOU GO

A Midsummer Night's Dream

-When: 7:30 p.m., today, Friday, Monday, 3 p.m., Sunday

-Where: Kay Theatre, Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, University of Maryland, College Park

-Tickets: $20, $7 for students

-Box office: 301-405-ARTS