See ‘As You Like It’ for free in Prospect Park this week

One great thing about living in New York is that there are so many opportunities to pretend like you’re intelligent and cultured, even if you’re not, and it gets even easier in the summer with all the free events available to you. For instance, you could see some free opera this week at Brooklyn Bridge Park, but if you want to at least kind of understand what the hell is being said on stage, you could also see a free performance of Willy Shakespeare’s As You Like It in Prospect Park, tonight through Sunday.

You know old Willy Shakespeare, the guy who wrote the play that the Claire Danes/Leonardo DiCaprio movie Romeo+Juliet was based on. Turns out the guy wrote like, a whole bunch of plays, and the New York Classical Theatre company will perform one in Prospect Park for whoever wants to check it out. Prospect Park is as good a setting as any to see As You Like It, since so much of the comedy of mistaken identities takes place in a forest. We haven’t read or seen the play, but apparently it’s a comedy, which means that by the end, a whole bunch of people will be getting married instead of dying. Which is better for a night out in the summer.

Each of the performances will take place from 7pm to 9pm in the Long Meadow, starting tonight, June 24 and running through Sunday, June 29. You don’t need fancy stuff like “tickets” or “reservations,” presumably because they didn’t have those back in Shakespeare’s day. All you need to do it show up and remember that unlike the movies, people can actually hear you if you yell something at them on stage.