Act I, Scene II of A Midsummer's Night Dream opens at Quince's house. Peter Quince is an amateur actor who is seeking to organize a group of other actors for a play. Quince holds the script for the play in his hands and calls out the names of his fellow actors. These actors are ordinary laborers, such as a tailor and a weaver. Quince reads from the script and assigns each man his part. He also explains the details of their assigned characters. Some of the men question their roles, but Quince reasons with them and reassures them.
Before he says farewell, Quince implores them to "fail [him] not." Quince tells the players to meet him the next evening "in the palace wood, a mile without the town, by moonlight." He is detailed in his directions, and also tells them to meet him "at the duke's oak." He wants them to rehearse in the woods so that they will have more privacy. He wishes for their rehearsals to be in secret. He also tells them that before they meet, he "will draw a bill of properties."
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