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The Game Plan

What to do

Shakespeare in the Park is a rite of summer. What’s also great: Shakespeare in a park.

Hudson Warehouse has been staging classical plays in Riverside Park for 16 summers now. This season’s lineup features “Antony and Cleopatra” in June, “The Man in the Iron Mask” (Alexandre Dumas) in July, and then in August, the company returns to Shakespeare with an adaptation of “The Merry Wives of Windsor” that’s set in a Catskill resort during the ’60s.

These intimate productions are decidedly lower key than their Central Park counterparts: Hudson Warehouse uses the north patio of the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument at 89th Street and Riverside Drive as a stage and its steps as seating. Admission is pay-what-you’re-able, collected in a basket at the end of each show. There are no tickets and no assigned seats; the audience filters in piecemeal and chatters merrily until the production begins.

The players then make the space their own, dashing up and down the stairs through the audience, and using the adjacent lawn as “backstage.” And no matter how they set the scene, you can count on trees providing a scenic backdrop and birdsong featuring heavily in the soundtrack.