HUDSON – In the play “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” Quince introduces his ragtag group of actors and explains their purpose in staging a play is “to show our simple skill/That is the true beginning to our end.”

Alvirne High School’s Summer Shakespeare production of his most beloved comedy will go on Friday and Saturday night at 7:30 at Hills Garrison School in Hudson.

In this case, the “skill” wasn’t all that simple.

In June, the day high school students auditioned for the play, they found out their teacher, Jennifer LaFrance, was diagnosed with breast cancer and would be going through chemotherapy while they were in production. That was also just one week before a group of nine Alvirne students, members of the school’s Class Act theater group, were about to fly to Nebraska for a national theater competition under LaFrance’s leadership.

But the competition and the show went on. The actors took off for Nebraska and at the last minute; Marianne Hedges, another English teacher at Alvirne, sat in for LaFrance; and three Class Act mothers also dropped their plans to make the trip. Not only did the students excel at the competition, but one, sophomore Mirra MacDonald, became the first student from New Hampshire to perform at the showcase.

Meanwhile, in Hudson, English teacher Lauren Denis – who, along with Hedges has been part of Summer Shakespeare for the past four years – began rehearsals for the play.

Not such an easy task.

“Jen is my friend as well as colleague. I won’t lie. I was upset about the news that she had cancer, but we both knew right away, the play would go ahead as planned,” Denis said. “Jen is an amazing, strong person, and even though she might not always be here physically because of her treatments, she’s always here through the training she’s given the kids and in every other way possible.”

But LaFrance said the show has gone on because of the true spirit of theater which is “community,” she said.

At a recent rehearsal, LaFrance looked like one of the sprites in the play with her deep purple print scarf tied around her head and high energy beaming from her face, despite a chemo round earlier in the week

“Everyone has stepped up,” LaFrance said. “The student actors, their parents, former students and, most of all, Lauren Denis.

“The truth is, if she had not taken the helm, there would be no play this summer,” LaFrance said. “Here’s someone with a brand-new baby, teaching a class at the school for a summer session, and Summer Shakespeare is also a class, and she stepped up.”

In addition to all the tasks on her plate running the production, Denis took the time to have pink-and-white T-shirts made for all the cast, crew and volunteers to wear the first time LaFrance came in for rehearsal this summer. She was greeted by a cast sporting, “Mrs. LaFrance Doesn’t Fight Alone!” on their chests.

“This isn’t really about me,” LaFrance said. “It’s about what people outside of theater rarely get to know about theater – that it’s so much more than actors and crew, and props. It’s a tight-knit community that would do anything for each other.”

LaFrance comes to rehearsals whenever her doctors give her the go-ahead, and in her stead, her 29-year-old son Alex LaFrance stepped up as technical director. He’s a professional actor and theater technician working in television, theater and film. He came up from New York to help with the Alvirne play, and then he’s off to Kansas City to finish his graduate studies in set design.

“This has been a great two weeks,” he said. “My mother and I spend the best time together when we work together. Every night, whether she has made it to rehearsal or not, we go over what’s been done and what has yet to be done.”

Samantha Weis, a senior playing Hermia in “Midsummer Night’s Dream,” knows the importance of that close-knit community. The spunky and diminutive actress, who has been in the troupe since she was a freshman, also has Crohn’s disease.

“Everyone here is family. You can tell them anything about yourself and you can trust them. They come through for you. And being in the theater is the best distraction from your own troubles and problems,” Weis said.

“Mrs. LaFrance knows she has our love and support,” Weis added. “We all have each others’ backs.”

LaFrance said social networking has allowed that support to take off this summer.

“With Facebook, I feel like I’m right there at the rehearsals, even if I’m sitting at home. It’s also become a great forum to share notes and ideas about the play, feelings about the production, and has allowed me to be at the school even when I can’t be at the school. It keeps us all linked to this amazing community that’s the theater.”