"Puck has TB?"

As I said, July is the jewel in our crown.

This jewel is constantly polished, refined, and reformed by creative vision, inspiration, and downright out-of-the-box thinking. Or, how about, out-of-the-theater?

Outdoor theater is not a new idea, by any means; as a student, I was awed by many memorable performances in lush college quads, parks, and an amphitheater; my New York City nephew is a 10-year-old veteran of Central Park performances. Many other cities and college town boast similar opportunities.

But here is a new twist: how about Shakespeare in the Adirondack Park-?!?

While Central Park is a restful haven of nature for Manhattan, and college quads and parklands offer refreshing respite from the numbing grind of academia - well, they're pretty small compared to the 6 million acres encircled by the Blue Line!

No problem.

Stephen Svoboda, the executive director of the Adirondack Lakes Center for the Arts, is not one to be cowed by fickle mountain weather. His heart does not quake at the logistics of moving a show 12 times in 7 days, over hundreds of miles of twisty mountain roads. A Midsummer Night's Dream is to be performed between July 25th and August 1st at an array of locations to make you reach for a map: Thendara, Tupper Lake, Blue Mountain Lake, Long Lake, Old Forge, Raquette Lake, Minerva, Indian Lake, North Creek, Paul Smiths, Inlet, and Speculator.

This I gotta see!

The nearest performance to my location is July 31st at the Adirondack Park Visitor Interpretive Center (VIC).

Click here to see when and where it will be near you.

And no, Puck does not suffer from tuberculosis! My 15-year-old son (who aspires to comedic greatness) posed the question when he learned this play is being staged outside in the clean mountain air so often prescribed to victims of that disease. But the show promises to cure lots of other, more modern ailments: ennui, indifference, worldliness, apathy . . .

Our North Country summer is the more luscious for its brevity. Make the most of its opportunities, and rejoice in creative invention!