Evansville Shakespeare Players started in 2011 when Gretchen Ross and Toni Schaperjohn decided this town needed free Shakespeare outdoors and then, unlike most people who decide things like that, actually did it every single summer after. Toni is back in the director's chair. She loves this particular play enough that she named her first daughter after Olivia. Her second is named after Helena from Midsummer. That is not fandom, that is a lifestyle.

The roster this year runs 31 deep and the spread is the best part. Mark Atchison plays Sir Toby Belch, the same role he played in his very first Shakespeare production back in 1992, now for the third time. Bruce Womack is 68 and only started doing theater four years ago, which is already his sixth show from the Bard. Garret Dennis first performed with ESP at nine years old and currently plays harp, flute, violin and handbells, with ukulele in progress. HarMonee Baltzell is on show number 57 overall and moves to Atlanta in September to chase film work, so this is a hometown send-off whether she calls it one or not.

Madi Clark plays Viola and choreographs the show, meaning she carries the plot and tells everyone where to stand while doing it. Kyle Burgess takes on Malvolio, the pompous steward who gets tricked into cross-gartered yellow stockings, in his tenth ESP production. Gretchen Ross plays Maria, the mastermind behind that trick, which is a fun thing to know about the woman who reads you the morning news. And there is a live band. Actual musicians, actual singing, no backing track.

Thirty-one people put this on. Directors, tech, musicians, understudies, a couple of parent-and-kid pairs, and a woman you watch on TV every morning. Here is the whole roster, grouped by who they are in the story.

Toni Schaperjohn directs, Jondi Soper stage manages, Kim Payne runs tech in her 18th ESP show. Ask Jondi where she would like to wash ashore and she will tell you nowhere, because the ocean is basically a giant soup with sharks in it.

Ana Smith and Katie Voegerl are making ESP debuts, Katie after a very long time away from any stage. Bruce Womack is 68 and four years into theater. Sheree Medley came back last year, Paul Bragin hosts mornings on WBNL, and Kelseigh Ingram is on her fifth Summer Shakes.

Yes, there is live music. Dorothy Sibrel, Audrey Mereday and Griffin DeVoy handle it, and Griffin also plays Curio. Audrey collects swords. Griffin has two cats, one named Lumi and one named Fifth Third Bank.

Two parents, two kids, one stage. Kate Small plays First Officer alongside her third-generation theatre kid Ben Scheu, and Jessica Dennis plays the Captain, the one who fishes Viola out of the sea, next to her son Garret on roughly five instruments.

Christopher Floyd as the Priest, HarMonee Baltzell as Valentine, Sarah Dunsworth as Olivia's servant, and Will Padgett as Second Officer. Between them they cover a small pile of understudy roles, which is the least glamorous and most load-bearing job in any show.

Everybody assumes Sebastian drowned in that shipwreck. He did not, and Antonia is the reason. Linus McKinney plays the missing twin, Lillie Blankenship plays the person who pulls him out, in her 16th show with ESP.

Every great comedy needs four people with too much time and a terrible idea. Gretchen Ross plays Maria the mastermind, Mark Atchison plays Sir Toby for the third time in his life, Nate Cole plays Sir Andrew, and Erin Monahan plays Fabian.

One of these men is about to be humiliated in yellow stockings. The other one is going to sing about it. Kyle Burgess plays Malvolio in his tenth ESP production, Patrick Litteken plays Feste, the role where funny and musical are both mandatory.

A Duke loves a countess. The countess loves a man who is not a man. And the woman in the middle just wanted a job. Madi Clark plays Viola and choreographs, Jacob Murphey plays Orsino, and Grace Temple plays Olivia in her last Evansville show before Ball State.

EVPL West is not just a convenient patch of grass. It is one of three original Evansville libraries built with money donated by Andrew Carnegie, dedicated and opened to the public on January 1, 1913. It got a renovation in 2003, and the park around it is the same ground that hosts the farmers market and the West Side Nut Club Fall Festival every October.

So run the math on that. A steel baron's library, 113 years old, on the same lawn where half this city eats a brain sandwich every fall, now hosting a Greek island love triangle. Evansville does not do things halfway, it just does them in unexpected order.

And there is a nice bit of symmetry in the move. For years Shakespeare in the Park lived on the lawn at Willard Library, the 1877 Victorian Gothic pile downtown that has been on the National Register since 1972. ESP has essentially spent fifteen summers performing in front of Evansville's two great old libraries. Somewhere out there is a Shakespeare company doing this in a strip mall. Not ours.

You are on the best-fed block on the West Side, so use it. Gerst Bavarian Haus is at 2100 W. Franklin, roughly a hundred steps from where you will be sitting, and a schnitzel before a Greek island comedy is the kind of decision that makes a Friday. Smitty's Italian Steakhouse at 2109 and Sportsman's Grille & Billiards at 2315 both put out a breaded pork tenderloin worth the walk. Want a drink after? Franklin Street Tavern and Bud's Rockin' Country Bar are both right there and both open late.

The real move, though, is Milk & Sugar Scoop Shoppe at 2027 W. Franklin, which is directly across the street and open until 9 on Sunday and 10 on Friday and Saturday. Show ends, you walk fifty feet, you get a scoop, you argue about whether Malvolio deserved it. He did not. Mostly.

Think of this one as a postcard that took a while to get here. Somebody dropped it in the mail in about 1602, it got routed through a few hundred stages and a Carnegie library or two, and it finally lands on a lawn on Franklin Street on a hot Friday in August with your name on it. Thirty-one of your neighbors signed the back. Postage was already covered. All you have to do is show up and read it.

Bring a chair. Bring a friend who swears they do not get Shakespeare. Bring a few bucks for the bucket.

Admission is free, and it has been free for fifteen summers straight. That only works because people drop something in the bucket on their way out.

Donations are graciously accepted at the show. Tuck a few bills in your chair bag before you leave the house, because nobody remembers to bring cash to a thing that costs nothing.

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