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Eric Wunsch, Renee Fawess, James Miller and Christine Doidge hold the puppets that represent Demetrius, Helena, Lysander and Hermia, four young lovers who will fall victim to a magical mistake in the woods of Athens.

James Miller holds the puppet that represents runaway Athenian lover Lysander and Christine Doidge holds the puppet that represents Hermia.

Eric Wunsche, in gingham, portrays Thisbe, who is distraught to find Pyramas (James Miller) dead.

Actor James Miller, as Pyramus in the play-within-the-play in ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream,’ is horrified to find a bloody cloth which he considers evidence that a lion killed his beloved Thisbe. Christine Doidge in the background is carrying a lantern to represent the moon.

“Put on your silly ears.”

Actor James Miller offers that advice to young audiences who will watch Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” when the Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble sends its Theater-in-the-Classroom project to schools around the region.

Miller takes his own advice, too.

In the show, he portrays a character named Bottom who wears a pair of long, silly ears attached to an aviator cap to show he’s been magically turned into a donkey, at least partially.

But there’s another way to “put on silly ears,” and Miller and his three cast mates are all doing that as well, as they listen for and appreciate the silliness of a play within the play.

In that little skit, audiences will see a group of well-meaning but not terribly clever laborers, with names like Snug and Snout and, of course, Bottom, present the “lamentable comedy and cruel death of Pyramus and Thisbe.”

Poor Pyramus and Thisbe. They are neighbors and they are in love, but there is a wall between their homes. So, when they try to get together, Thisbe gets to say such lines as, “I kissed the wall hole, not thy lips at all.”

And, soon, when Pyramus mistakenly believes a lion has killed Thisbe, he will pull out a plastic sword and spend a long time killing himself — all for the enjoyment of a royal couple who will be represented by 7-foot-tall lollipop puppets.

There are four other, smaller rod puppets that the cast — Miller, Christine Doidge, Renee Fawess and Eric Wunsch — will carry to represent two sets of young lovers who have run away into the woods of Athens and magically — yes, there’s that enchantment at work once again — fall in love with the wrong people.

But even if the young couples become confused, audiences will be able to tell that Helena and Demetrius really belong together and so do Lysander and Hermia. As director Richard Cannaday pointed out, the puppets are color coded, with two blue ones and two green ones.

Because there are only four actors in the cast and each has multiple roles, Cannaday said, the puppets, crafted by Philadelphia theatre artist Aaron Cromie, will help the audience distinguish among characters.

The show is aimed at third through sixth graders, whom cast members described as young enough to “not think it’s uncool to participate” but old enough to sit still and understand what’s going on.