Chris Anthony confesses that she's heard the charge before: "I have been accused of using a disco ball in nearly every show I direct."

And this one is no exception.

In a '70s-era treatment of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" at the Black Rep, she asks, what else could represent the moon? She sighed.

"They're so evocative," she said of disco balls.

Of course, one mirrored ball does not a disco make. But Anthony has plenty more in mind for this staging of the classic comedy.

Titania (Monica Parks), the fairy queen, "has big, big hair, like Diana Ross," she said. "And the fairy king, Oberon (Robert A. Mitchell), has his funky crew, like George Clinton.

"At rehearsal, we've been talking about icons of black TV from the '70s, like 'Good Times,' and we've been watching videos of 'Soul Train.' We're also listening to all kinds of music from the period, from funk to 'Hooked on Classics.' It's going to be a real mixed bag!"

And that's just how Anthony likes her bags — as mixed-up as they can get. In 2008, she directed the Black Rep's offbeat "Othello," which was set in Cuba and portrayed Iago as a wily trickster. Two years later, she came up with a combustible "Romeo and Juliet," reimagining the tragedy in St. Louis during the civil rights struggles of the 1960s.

These shifts in time and place aren't characteristic of her work alone. They are also characteristic the Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles. Anthony, who grew up in St. Louis — or, as she puts it, on Lindell, where she studied first at Rosati-Kain High School and then St. Louis University — is the center's associate artistic director.

Committed to community-building through art, the center is known for productions that move Shakespeare in time and place. It's an approach that Anthony embraces.

"These nontraditional interpretations help people connect to Shakespeare, and I think anything that does that is valuable," she said. "They feel ownership, and that is my goal."

But "Midsummer," the most child-friendly of Shakespeare's plays, is likely to draw theatergoers who don't remember the 1970s at all. Will this interpretation help them make connections?

Anthony thinks it will.

"For some people, this era is nostalgia and, for others, it's ancient history," she said. "But everybody recognizes those spandex jumpsuits!

"And they recognize the music, too. Some people will say, 'Of course, Parliament Funkadelic, I have the anthology,' and others won't even know the songs.

"But it will sound familiar anyway. It will remind them of things they already know. It's going to be funny, and it's going to be fun."

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"A Midsummer Night's Dream"

When 8 p.m Friday through March 4 • Where Grandel Theatre, 3610 Grandel Square • How much $20-$47 • More info 314-534-3810; theblackrep.org