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New York City is getting another shot in the arm this summer with Free Shakespeare in the Park’s happy Merry Wives, playwright Jocelyn Bioh’s embraceable adaptation of the Bard’s The Merry Wives of Windsor starring Watchmen‘s Jacob Ming-Trent as that great, rotund creation Falstaff.

Briefly delayed by injury and Covid, Merry Wives opens tonight as a most welcome – and, with vaccines required, as safe as can be – escape from the woes of the world. With an update to a contemporary South Harlem peopled with a splendid assemblage of West African immigrant characters, Merry Wives enhances the classic farce with up-to-the-minute references, the occasional brief snippet of R&b crooning, and a same-sex romance that seems completely at home in the setting.

If the intermission-less production, directed by Saheem Ali, doesn’t quite reach the joyous heights of Kwame Kwei-Armah and Shaina Taub similarly updated Twelfth Night,...

New York’s Free Shakespeare in the Park production this summer of Merry Wives, a comedy adaptation by Jocelyn Bioh of the Bard’s Merry Wives of Windsor, will feature an all-Black cast including Jacob Ming-Trent (HBO’s Watchmen), Gbenga Akinnagbe (Broadway’s To Kill A Mockingbird), Shola Adewusi (CBS’ Bob Hearts Abishola) and Susan Kelechi Watson (NBC’s This Is Us).

The Public Theater announced the complete casting today, along with new dates for the staging in Central Park’s Delacorte Theater: Performances will begin Tuesday, July 6 (instead of the previously announced July 5) and run through Saturday, September 18 (an extension of three weeks from the previously announced engagement). The official opening night is Tuesday, July 27.

The extension is designed to compensate for current social distancing procedures that will require limited audience capacity of 428 at the 1,800-seat Delacorte. The audience capacity could be expanded if state requirements for small- and medium-sized venues change before July.