The cast of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” calls itself a family.

Each performer and crew member could go on for days about the energy and affection among people in the show and the familylike atmosphere that makes night after night of rehearsal more fun than work.

“Every night we watch it and laugh at each other,” theater sophomore Nathaniel Nose said. “If there was ever a show that was cast perfectly, this is it. Everyone is so right for their parts.”

Nose plays Demetrius, one member of a set of three pairs of lovers who get confused when their intentions are sprinkled with a healthy dose of fairy magic.

“‘Midsummer’ happens to be, in my opinion, Shakespeare’s most successful show,” Nose said. “It’s because a troupe of sixth graders could do it and it would still be funny.”

The MSU Department of Theatre will present “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” at 7:30 p.m. Thursday in Wharton Center’s Pasant Theatre. In what will be the first of 11 shows, cast and crew members are itching to get in front of an audience after months of nightly rehearsals.

Cast members are confident the humor and energy in the play will fascinate even skeptical audiences.

“It’s a fun show, and the actors are still excited,” production stage manager Erin Haggerty said. “They’ve seen the show 50 times and they still laugh in the same places.”

Haggerty calls the shots at rehearsal and has earned the title of “a glorified mom” in the cast family.

“Sometimes shows get dry, people get bored with it,” she said. “Part of my job is to keep them happy, and with this show I didn’t have to worry about it.

“It’s just been great overall.”

Part of putting the show together was rehearsing three subsets of the cast: the lovers, the fairies and the rude mechanicals, a group of wandering actors hoping to put on their play for the duke and his bride.

The Shakespearean language was a stumbling block for some actors, but many, such as Shakespeare novice Sarah Habel, found that once they got past the metaphors, the words flowed freely.

“It was foreign to me,” the theater junior said of her Shakespeare studies. “In high school it was more intellectual than who the people are. Really, you can read it as much as you want, but you won’t understand it until you say it.”

At the first rehearsal on Sept. 30, director Marcus Olson emphasized the importance of the actors’ understanding the “what” and “why” of their lines, using dictionaries and lexicons to pick apart the text. Many performers studied at home.

“That was their homework,” Olson said. “We did a lot of table work using Shakespeare dictionaries and concordances.”

Olson said the cast was a pleasure to work with, calling them “good, hardworking, amiable folk.”

“For me, part of fulfilling the vision has been collaborating with the actors and designers,” he said. “Things have changed from the original idea because of good ideas coming from the actors and designers.”

Theater graduate student R. Scott Cantrell, who plays Theseus, has appeared in “Midsummer” four times, the first when he was 16 years old.

“When I first started, it was challenging to grasp,” he said of performing Shakespeare. “It gets easier to understand. It sounds logical to me.”

Kevin Pierson, a theater senior who plays Snout the Tinker - one of the rude mechanicals - said since he had fewer lines to memorize, he had more freedom in his role.

“Since I didn’t have to worry so much about memorization, it gave me the chance to be more creative through Marcus’s ideas,” he said, adding that Shakespeare’s vivid language helped him understand his character.

“The way he writes helps you on stage,” he said. “The more you read it, the more you understand what he wants to convey.”

Theater senior Jason Wagner plays Bottom, Snout’s fellow mechanical and a melodramatic egoist.

“What’s great about Shakespeare is that once you get past the language barrier, Shakespeare spells it out for you,” he said. “You just have to work through it, make the language your own.”

“Midsummer” is Wagner’s second Shakespeare play, his first being last year’s “Hamlet,” for which he represented MSU in the Irene Ryan Acting Scholarship competition at the regional Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival. This show will also be entered in the festival.

“This has been a different kind of challenge,” Wagner said of his role as Bottom. “Bottom has such an energy, you have to drive through everything with energy and excitement.

“It’s exhausting, but it’s a ton of fun.”

Patrick Hickey sprained his hip because of the physical demand of his role. The theater sophomore plays the devious troublemaker Puck.

“I was running so fast and it was a slippery floor,” he said. “I was on crutches for a week.”

A week on crutches did not dampen his enthusiasm, however, and he now climbs around the playgroundlike set with ease.

“It’s been a riot working with these people,” Hickey said. “It’s one big happy family.”

Many members of the cast are especially looking forward to a series of high school-only matinees that will be performed at 9:45 a.m. Tuesday through Nov. 15.

“I can’t wait,” said theater freshman Kelly Curtis, who plays Lysander. “I feel so prepared to get in front of an audience and get that energy back and forth.”

Wagner said the time put into “Midsummer” will pay off and audiences will love the show for lots of reasons.

“We the actors, the costumers, the set designers, the lighting designers, they’ve just put so much work into this show,” he said. “Inside and outside rehearsal, it’s been a team effort from day one. I hope the audience will see it and forget about it and get lost in the wonderment of the show.

“It really creates a world, and I hope people get lost in that world.”

“A Midsummer Night’s Dream” opens at 7:30 p.m. Thursday in Wharton Center’s Pasant Theatre and continues at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday. It will also run at the those times Nov. 14-16 with a matinee at 2 p.m. Nov. 17. Tickets are $7 for adults, $5 for students and seniors, and can be reserved at (517)432-2000.