“Were the World Mine” is a wonderful gay-themed musical adaptation of William Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

The film takes the familiar scenarios of high school angst and adolescent crushes and gives them a wonderful musical spin.

Timothy (Tanner Cohen) is a gay student in an all male prep school located in a bigoted small town. Even Timothy’s blue-collar mother, Donna (Judy McLane), is unsupportive – asking him, “Why are you gay? What did I do?”

Timothy frequently has lucid daydreams – sexually themed musical interludes that release him from the misery of the daily put downs and beat downs by towel-snapping jocks. The film blends spontaneous fantasy sequences with brutally honest high school dialogue. In the meantime Timothy harbors a secret crush on school’s über-jock, rugby star Jonathon (Nathaniel David Becker).



The school’s drama teacher (Wendy Robie), a witch for all seasons, pulls the strings behind the production of the senior play and casts Timothy as Puck in an all-male version of “Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

While studying his lines in the play’s script, he deciphers a hidden formula for Cupid’s love-juice, a potion that causes love at first sight, just like the one in the Shakespeare play.

Creating his magical pansy that spurts dust, everyone begins to fall in love with the first person that they see, forcing him or her to speak in iambic verse. In time-honored tradition, merry havoc reigns but Timothy is having too much fun to think about the lives he’s altering. Soon the entire rugby team is paired off, the coach has declared his love for the principal, and Timothy and Jonathan are officially an item.

“Were the World Mine” has the theatrical spirit of a Broadway show, complete with dancing rugby players and a rock-opera finale. Using Shakespeare’s verse as lyrics, the enchanting songs not only work, but most soar.

“Were the World Mine” is a highly recommended enjoyable “feel-good” gay musical fantasy.

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