Start with moonlight, add an evening breeze, a picnic basket and a bottle of wine. Toss in an outdoor production of a Shakespeare play and you have the recipe for a perfect summer night.

It’s festival season, and there are many choices for theatergoers this year, nearby and farther afield.

Closest to home is the Davis Shakespeare Ensemble’s ambitious production of “Henry V,” which continues through Sunday, with performances Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 6:30 p.m. in the gazebo at the UC Davis Arboretum.

This gutsy little presentation of one of Shakespeare’s most famous history plays features just five actors playing multiple lords, dukes and ordinary soldiers, as the action spreads from the royal courts of England and France to the bloody battlefield at Agincourt, where young King Henry V defies long odds and emerges victorious.

Clashing swords, hidden treachery and heroism — as well as cowardice — as men march off to war are hallmarks of this play, which chronicles Henry’s remarkable transformation from a ne’er-do-well playboy prince — hanging out in grubby taverns with the worst sort of company — into a decisive, fair but tough-minded sovereign, who shows no favoritism toward his former drinking buddies.

The play also features several humorous scenes, as Henry, invincible on the battlefield, but awkward when it comes to romance, woos a French princess.

Tickets are $15 general, $12 for students and seniors and $10 for children under 12, available at www.shakespearedavis.com or (530) 802-0998. Bring a sweater, since the show runs until about 10:30 p.m., and the evening air cools down as the night wears on.

The Sacramento Shakespeare Festival — a community theater offshoot of Sacramento City College — gets under way Friday in Sacramento’s Land Park, in the William A. Caroll Amphitheatre, near Fairytale Town.

This year’s schedule features “King Arthur,” an original play by the festival’s own writer/director Luther Hanson, and “The Comedy of Errors,” the famous Shakespeare farce involving two sets of identical twins and numerous cases of mistaken identity.

“King Arthur” plays June 29, 30, July 8, 13, 15, 20, 22 and 27. “Comedy of Errors” plays July 6, 7, 12, 14, 19, 21, 26 and 29. The box office opens at 6 p.m. and gates open at 6:30 p.m. (arrive early for the best spots on the grass in front of the stage; there are no reserved seats.

Tickets are $18 general, $15 for students and seniors; children ages 6-12 are free. Picnic baskets, low-slung beach chairs, insect repellent and a sweater for the second act are recommended.

The Winters Theater Company will stage its annual outdoor Shakespeare show at 8 p.m. Aug. 10-11 and 17-18 in the amphitheater behind the Winters Community Center, 201 Railroad Ave. in Winters. This year’s show is “Twelfth Night,” a comedy involving Viola, a plucky young woman who is shipwrecked in a strange land, and passes herself off as a boy to enter the service of an influential family.

Tickets are $5; children under 12 are free, if accompanied by an adult. For information, go to www.winterstheatre.org, or call (530) 795-4014.

Up in the Sierra foothills, Main Street Theatre Works is staging the famous battle-of-the-sexes comedy, “The Taming of the Shrew,” in the Kennedy Mine Amphitheatre in Jackson. This production moves the story to contemporary times on the East Coast (think “Jersey Shore” and “The Sopranos”).

Performances are Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m.; gates open at 6:30 p.m. for picnics. Tickets are $17.50 general, $12 for students 18 and under, or $49 for a “family package” (two adults, two students).

For information and directions, go to www.mstw.org or call (209) 295-4499.

Toward the coast, the Marin Shakespeare Festival — presented outdoors in an amphitheater on the Dominican University campus in San Rafael — opens Friday, July 6, with “King John,” one of the less-often-staged history plays about an early English monarch.

Performing in the title role will be actor Scott Coopwood, who has been seen in several dramas during the past few years at Capital Stage in Sacramento.

“King John” plays Fridays through Sundays from July 6 through Aug. 12. The evergreen comedy “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” joins the festival rotation on July 20 and continues through Aug. 26. And a third play — “The Liar,” adapted from an 1644 French farce by Pierre Corneille — will rotate with the other two between Aug. 17 and Aug. 26.

Performance times vary. Check the website, www.marinshakespeare.org, or call (415) 499-4888 for details. Tickets are $75 general, $65 for seniors, $45 for youths.

Over in the East Bay hills, California Shakespeare Theater‘s first show of the season — Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” — has already closed at the Bruns Memorial Amphitheatre in Orinda, below the eastern entrance to the Caldecott Tunnel on Highway 24.

Next up will be “Spunk,” running July 4-29. “Spunk” is a 90-minute show drawing on three stories by African-American writer Zora Neal Hurston, staged with bluesy music.

Then, from Aug. through Sept. 2, CalShakes presents the sophisticated Noel Coward comedy “Blithe Spirit.” And after Labor Day, there will be an autumn production of “Hamlet,” running Sept. 19-Oct.14.

Tickets for these professional productions start at $35-$48, available at www.calshakes.org or (510) 548-9666.

The Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival presents “Two Gentlemen of Verona” from July 13 through Aug. 26. Performances are Tuesdays through Sundays; gates open at 5:30 p.m. and show starts at 7:30 p.m. in a beach-side amphitheater at Sand Harbor State Park on the lake’s Nevada shore.

“Two Gentlemen of Verona” is one of Shakespeare’s less familiar comedies. This production will include an onstage folk/rock band.

Tickets are $25-$85 and reservations are recommended, at www.laketahoeshakespeare.com or (800) 74-SHOWS. The Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival also features a variety of different concerts on Monday evenings; check the festival website for details.

The Shakespeare Santa Cruz festival, held on the UC Santa Cruz campus, features the Bard’s comedy “Twelfth Night” from July 24 through Aug. 26; swords in action in a new adaptation of “The Man in the Iron Mask,” July 25-Aug. 26; and the return of the riotous Sir John Falstaff in “Henry IV, Part Two,” Aug. 7-26.

Tickets to these professional shows run $30-$50 and are available at www.shakespearesantacruz.org or (831) 459-2159.

And the Oregon Shakespeare Festival — the grandaddy of the West Coast summer series — beckons with productions including the history play “Henry V,” the seldom-staged “Troilus and Cressida,” the comedy “As You Like It,” the Shakespeare spinoff “The Very Merry Wives of Windsor, Iowa,” and a show merging Greek tragedy, Elizabethan comedy and American musical comedy titled “Medea/Macbeth/Cinderella.”

For information, go to www.osfashland.org or call (800) 219-8161. This year’s festival, which started in February, will conclude on Nov. 4.

— Reach Jeff Hudson at [email protected] or (530) 747-8055.

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Lake Tahoe makes a breathtaking backdrop for the Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival, which presents “Two Gentlemen of Verona” from July 13 through Aug. 26 in a beachside amphitheater at Sand Harbor State Park on the lake’s Nevada shore. Courtesy photo

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Outdoor shows are held all summer on the UC Santa Cruz campus; this summer’s slate features “Twelfth Night,” July 24-Aug. 26; an adaptation of “The Man in the Iron Mask,” July 25-Aug. 26; and “Henry IV, Part Two,” Aug. 7-26. Courtesy photo

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Sword play is up close and personal in the Davis Shakespeare Ensemble’s production of “Henry V,” which continues through Sunday in the gazebo at the UC Davis Arboretum. Courtesy photo

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Brandon Lancaster is Lucentio, Elizabeth Holzman is Bianca and Ben Miller is Hortensio in the Main Street Theatre Works’ production of “Taming of the Shrew.” It is a modern-dress show working off a “Jersey Shore/The Sopranos” concept, i.e., modern Italian-Americans rather than Elizabethan-era Italians. Courtesy photo

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