Cast members rehearse Tuesday in Westerly’s Wilcox Park in preparation for tonight’s opening of As You Like It.

The Providence Journal / John Freidah

WESTERLY — The truck carrying stage lighting was stuck in Connecticut’s Route 95 traffic on Monday, delaying Harland Meltzer’s Shakespeare in the Park production schedule by three hours.

He spent the early part of the week checking the Weather Whannel as carefully as his actors checked their lines, attempting to predict the outdoor climate for the opening performances in Wilcox Park.

Mosquitoes and squirrels arrived at rehearsal uninvited, and Meltzer had no idea about ticket sales because there aren’t any advance sales; admission is by unpredictable donations.

Despite the setbacks, Harland D. Meltzer keeps coming back to his Colonial Theatre Shakespeare in the Park, a project he helped initiate almost two decades ago and one which returns to Wilcox Park tonight, with As You Like It continuing through Aug. 3.

“I believe in the work, and I believe in the mission,” he said this week, the mission being to bring Shakespeare to all, and if they leave a donation to the cause, all the better.

The New York resident arrived in Westerly in 1985 to transform an 1849 Westerly church into a professional summer theater, calling it the Colonial Theater.

Shows were staged in front of 150 people a night, indoors.

But with the stately Wilcox Park at his front door, he was reminded of fond childhood memories of seeing Shakespearean productions in New York’s Central Park. He and two friends, John Eisner and Ezra Barnes, figured why not Westerly? And so in 1991 the Shakespeare project began.

Though there have been leadership comings and goings, and though Meltzer no longer operates the indoor theater, he still calls the outdoor productions The Colonial Theatre Shakespeare Festival. He has persevered even though last year the season was canceled due to a dispute with the park’s governing Westerly Public Library.

“Last year was an aberration,” he said. Disagreements were worked out, and performance times set. The show, it appears, will go on.

“It’s too good to let it languish,” said board member and longtime supporter Paul Singer of Richmond, talking of his own personal joy in overhearing local merchants and bank tellers discussing Shakespeare as readily as they might discuss a TV reality show.

It’s a respected Westerly tradition, he said, but it does come with its own set of challenges, ranging from the location wrangles to competition from action movies shown in air-conditioned, bugless nearby theaters.

“O, how full of briers is this working-day world,” Shakespeare wrote, and Meltzer must deal with the briers as well as the applause to get the shows up and running each evening at 8. Warm weather might be too warm to bring audiences out. Threats of rain might make them cautious. Unexpected lighting snafus one year had cast members turning to flashlights.

Why push on?

“I remember going every summer to Central Park and seeing Shakespeare,” Meltzer said. “It was a day-long event.”

It’s also a theater experience he feels should be shared for those not destined for Central Park, and given that audiences here can pay as they will, or not pay at all, it’s theater for the masses.

But it’s not free for the producers.

Fundraising is a year-round effort. Meltzer said he’ll take a week with his wife and sons after the season closes, and start fundraising anew for next season while preparing to return to his teaching at St. Hilda’s & St. Hugh’s, the same New York school he attended as a boy, which is “two blocks away from where I live.”

“The administration is really supportive and it allows time for my professional life,” he said.

Meltzer said while he continues to direct shows at various locations, including Newport and New York, “I spend a lot of the year fundraising.”

Singer says it costs “on average about $175,000” to bring the production to the park, depending upon the show, and it is all supported by donations and grants.

Park rules stipulate that use of the park must be free and open to the public, Singer said, and if donations increased individually, he said it would be a lot easier to maintain the season.

There have been discussions about performing in locations where they can charge admission, “but I think people would like us to stay,” he said of the downtown Westerly location. Plus, the park itself often serves as a natural backdrop.

Feedback, Singer said, is positive, and he estimates that the group performs before 20,000 people or more each season.

New York auditions brought out some 300 actors, including this year’s headliner, David Birney, who is returning after appearing five years ago in The Merchant of Venice. On Broadway he has appeared in Amadeus, and on TV Bridget Loves Bernie, St. Elsewhere and Serpico.

Also in the cast this year are Alysia Reiner, Purva Bedi, Mark Irish, Enrique Bravo, Paul Romero, Patricia Santomasso, Providence native Bob Colonna, Ed Franklin of Watch Hill, Arthur “Bucky” Walsh of Westerly, Sean Hopkins of Charlestown, Kyle Blanchette of Coventry, and Kathleen Katic and Rudy Sanda of Providence. Westerly resident Flav Martin has composed an original musical score for the production.

At a part rehearsal this week, Bravo and Walsh fell into their lines and their characters while surrounded by sunbathers and strollers, cell phone chatters and stagehands, park personnel and the distant sound of lawn mowers. Meltzer directed from a patio chair.

It’s been 18 years, 17 of them active, of being motivated by their mission:

Live from Westerly … Shakespeare for all.

“It allows everyone to be a participant in live theater,” said Singer. “There’s something so different from plugging in a CD. It doesn’t have life in it.”

“…I will follow thee to the last gasp, with truth and loyalty. From seventeen years till now many their fortunes seek,” Walsh, cast as old Adam, dramatized on Tuesday, occasionally pulling his baseball cap off to wipe the sweat away. Though in his 80s, Walsh, whose credits include Broadway, film, and television, switched on his dramatic face faster than a nearby red light switched to green.

“Good, let’s do it one more time please,” Metlzer told the actors. “It’s getting better.”

The curtain goes up for the first time tonight. Performances will continue, at 8 p.m. Tuesday to Sunday, through Aug. 3. For more information, call (401) 596-7909 or check www.thecolonialtheater.org

afleming@projo.com