The location of that "uninhabited Island" Shakespeare imagined when he wrote "The Tempest" almost 400 years ago has been the subject of much debate. Still, it seems safe to say that what he had in mind wasn't 95 acres of wind-swept rock with a marine laboratory, historic gardens and a Web site.

Enter Jessica Bolker, bearing a vision. The UNH associate professor of zoology and former theater techie had read "The Tempest" but had never seen it on the stage. As associate director of the Shoals Marine Laboratory, operated jointly by Cornell and UNH, Bolker works on Appledore Island, the largest of the nine Isles of Shoals. Appledore, she thought, would be perfect.

At a potluck last fall, she approached David Richman, a Shakespearean scholar with the UNH theater and dance department. What did he think?

Almost as fast as "tricksy spirit" Ariel turns invisible, Richman made up his mind. The answer was yes. Shakespeare was bound for the Isles of Shoals.

David Kaye, who teaches acting, directing and playwriting in UNH's theater and dance department, agreed to direct. He too recognized the potential for spellbinding theater. "How many chances do you get to do 'The Tempest' on an island?" he asked. Still, for all its stark beauty, Appledore is not exactly hospitable, Kaye noted. Not much fresh water. Thin topsoil. Lots of poison ivy. Exactly where and when would they stage the play? How much would it cost to break even? How close would the audience have to sit to the island's generators? To tent or not to tent? What if a real tempest blew in at showtime? And, oh, yes: who would be in it?

Kaye and Richman designed "Shakespeare and Environmental Theater," a special summer course they would team-teach, to find out.

Twelve students signed up. It took three days in May to read through the play once as a group: Kaye and Richman wanted the ensemble to see and hear literally every syllable, considering nuance through an organic lens that would eventually need to include not only the "charms" and "brine pits" that Caliban, the play's local monster, describes, but also what they'd discover on Appledore.

One discovery was nesting Greater black-backed gulls so vocal and territorial they prevented Kaye from scoping out site possibilities and drove one actor to pop in ear-plugs in order to get a full night's sleep between rehearsals.

For Richman, who would play Prospero, every sound and line of a play is charged. Blind since birth, he reads scripts in Braille, and the role of Prospero, the revenge-nursing magician, is one he'd been hoping to play all his life. He carried a sumac branch found on the island as his staff, to accompany what Richman called Prospero's "difficult and painful and moral ascent" from fury to forgiveness.

As the performance drew closer, Liz O'Brien '00, production stage manager, boatswain and goddess, improvised with lists, Velcro and a whole lot of hot glue. O'Brien tacked every stitch in Caliban's 6-foot tail—made from a leaf-printed comforter—that Tucker Cummings '07, hunkering in a green unitard draped in fishnet, dragged around Appledore's rugged terrain to turn herself into a "savage and deformed slave."

The students designed their own dramatic masks and dog-heads, embellished with gull feathers and sticks from the island. C.J. Lewis '07 as Stephano, the drunken butler, swigged from a bottle made of tree bark; he and his companion Trinculo (Liam Billingham '05) draped themselves with fresh kelp. They spent hours scaling the rocky route from the beach so they wouldn't be out of breath when they bellowed their lines over the waves and gulls. For her role as "dainty spirit" Ariel, Harmony Stempel '06 taught herself to dance.

Hayley Bagwell '06 worked with Richman on the background for Antonio, Prospero's ruthless brother, trusting Kaye's vision in casting her for the part. "He told us it was time to push the envelope," she said.

For Samantha Cistulli '07, playing Miranda meant getting bitten by ants while lolling in Ferdinand's (Dan Beaulieu '06) arms. Jennifer Charles '06 ended up creating a new head for her 12-foot harpy puppet after version No. 4 didn't make it to the island. "This," Charles declared, "is a very organic production."

When the day in late August arrived, however, somehow miraculously everything, including the weather, was perfect. A small crowd of 100—tickets had been sold out since mid-summer—arrived on time via three laboratory research vessels. Audience members wound their way to a tent set on a bluff framed by sumac and chokecherry, picking up "silent" bag lunches on the way (think tuna, hummus, soft cookies) packed so as not to distract from the natural acoustics and the sound effects provided by Kaye.

And then they watched this play described by its director as "a chain of grace unfolding" under a flawless blue sky.

Bring on the brave new world.

Candice Stover is a freelance writer who lives on Mount Desert Island, Maine.