What soft? The bard is coming to Vannie

When Guy Ventoliere was a drama student at Lehman College, he heard about a production of “Timon of Athens” in Van Cortlandt Park. He wasn’t that into Shakespeare at the time, but thought it sounded fun. So he grabbed a friend and a six-pack of beer and headed down to the park. 

Now, 30 years later, Mr. Ventoliere has helped bring Shakespeare back to Vannie. On Saturday, July 25, the Hip to Hip Theatre Company will perform “The Merry Wives of Windsor” at the Red Steps, just south of the Van Cortlandt House Museum. Mr. Ventoliere, who manages the company, will act in the show.

The group’s mission is to bring free, top-notch performances to parks in the outer boroughs. So far, most of their shows have been in Queens, where the company was founded in 2007.

But Mr. Ventoliere grew up in the Bronx — including a stint in Riverdale — and said he has wanted to bring a Hip to Hip production to his home borough for a long time.

“It makes sense, because the Bronx is the borough of parks,” Mr. Ventoliere excitedly said during a recent rehearsal in Central Park. “That’s where we can really thrive. There’s so much greenery in the Bronx and there’s so many diverse neighborhoods and there’s so many neighborhoods that have so little access to the arts, especially Shakespeare. And what we do is make Shakespeare more accessible: we put it up on its feet, we make it interesting.”

Hip to Hip uses professional actors, a two-story set and a sound amplification system. Before shows, they also run a children’s program in which performers bring young attendees onto the stage to make the world of Shakespeare come alive.

After reaching out to several parks in the Bronx, Mr. Ventoliere said Van Cortlandt took him up on hosting a play.

“I think that when they realized we weren’t asking for money or anything else, that we were offering this free programming complete with all of what we offer, including this children’s component… They were quite pleased to have us,” he said.