It turns out that rehearsing Shakespeare in a park can be a bit trickier than practicing in a closed-door auditorium.

A cast preparing for this week’s performance of “As You Like It” has learned that this spring.

First, there’s the weather in Kansas, which can range from cold and rainy to perspiration-inducing. Then, there are the distractions from well-meaning onlookers.

“We had this little girl – she was about 9 years old – who happened by with her dad when they were riding bikes,” says Laura Leffler-McCabe, who is directing the production. “They watched for one or two hours that night. Then she came back with her dad another night. She’s our mascot, I guess.”

That’s the price – or perhaps the reward – of introducing open-air Shakespeare to Lawrence, the way it was performed in the original Globe theater in the Bard’s time.

“Shakespeare in the Park” has become a tradition from Central Park in New York City to Riverside Park in Wichita.

E.M.U. Theatre will bring that tradition to town by performing the lighthearted “As You Like It” Thursday through Saturday in South Park. The performances will continue May 12-13 at the Just Off Broadway Theatre grounds in Kansas City, Mo.

Jason Bradbury, left, and Blake Bolan rehearse their dance steps in preparation for E.M.U. Theatre's production of Shakespeare's As

“That kind of the tradition – Shakespeare started out as outdoor theater,” says R. Troy Hirsch, who plays Orlando in the production. “It’s an institution of open-air theater.”

Outdoor challenge

“As You Like It,” an early Shakespeare play that features more songs than any of his works, tells the story of Rosalind, whose uncle banishes her father and later herself to the forest. Rosalind later disguises herself as a man for protection and meets her true love, Orlando.

“The play is all about not just being in love but how to love and the correct way to show your love,” Leffler-McCabe says. “A lot of the ways we’re ‘supposed to do things’ in romance and love come from Victorian beliefs.”

The division of the play between the kingdom’s courtyard and the forest makes it especially appropriate to be set among the microburst-hacked trees of South Park, Leffler-McCabe says.

“This play is especially good for it, because the whole play is set outside,” she says. “I just think there’s something romantic and nice about sitting outside on a blanket and having sandwiches or whatever.”

But there are challenges of performing outdoors.

“It’s been challenging, especially when we started in March and there was the cold and the snowstorm,” she says. “And the other issue is anyone can be in the park, and someone will wander by and wander through our space and not know what we’re doing.”

From left, As

Hirsch says another challenge lies in doing “entrances” and “exits” from the stage when actors are still in full view of the audience. Acoustics are another challenge.

“In a theater, you can hear everybody – there is lots more to bounce your voice off of,” Hirsch says. “You’ll be talking (in the park), and a loud car will drive by and suddenly you’ll be shouting things.”

The production includes a simple set designed by Leffler-McCabe’s little sister, Kansas University student Kit Leffler, and original music by Jordy Altman, also a student at KU.

‘Lighthearted’ play

Hirsch, who studied abroad with the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-Upon-Avon, England, says nature is a key element to Shakespearean works. That’s why, he says, companies have moved outside to produce his plays.

“Especially in the comedies, nature has always had a huge role,” he says. “It plays such an integral role; it’s personified in the characters.”

That, he says, especially comes through in “As You Like It.”

“This play is a little more lighthearted,” he says. “‘As You Like It’ is one of my favorites, as far as the comedies go.”