If you’re the type who turns to your friends haughtily when they’re jonesing for some Hamlet or Othello and replies contemptuously, “I don’t pay for Shakespeare,” it’s almost your time of year.

That’s right, while companies like Folger Shakespeare Theatre and Washington Shakespeare Company are wrapping up their productions, and we’ll have to wait until 2007 for the amazing Shakespeare In Washington extravaganza, we still have options to get our Bard fix, and we don’t even have to fork over any dough for them.

Shakespeare Theatre Company’s free-for-all production this year is Pericles. We posted last year some guidelines on how to avoid the hassles of Free-For-All (among the suggestions – go on a weekday, get to Rock Creek Park early, make a day of it), so we won’t repeat ourselves. But Pericles sounds worth seeing, and we’ll be checking it out ourselves. The Free-For-All runs May 25-June 4.

For the Merry-landers in our readership, you can head out to Olney for a less obscure Shakespearean choice — Much Ado About Nothing, as part of the
Summer Shakespeare Festival. Olney’s got the show June 21-July 2, after which it travels to Westminster, Arlington, and, well, Elyria, Ohio if you’re desperate. Will this production best the Folger’s recent effort? You be the judge.

And if Shakespeare’s that much sweeter when you’re shelling out for a ticket, there’s always Shakespeare Theatre’s Love’s Labor’s Lost to keep you busy later this summer.