BWW TV: Watch Highlights from MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING in the Park, Featuring Lily Rabe, Hamish Linklater, Brian Stokes Mitchell & More!

The Public Theater's free Shakespeare in the Park production of Much Ado About Nothing began performances on Tuesday, June 3 and runs through Sunday, July 6, with an official press opening on Monday, June 16. Below, BroadwayWorld brings you a first look at

Obie Award winner Hamish Linklater and Tony Award nominee Lily Rabe return to the Park as the wise-cracking, would-be lovers Beatrice and Benedick in the beloved romantic comedy. Central Park becomes sun-drenched Sicily at the turn of the last century, where the heat of summer ignites the fevered passions of lovesick ladies in corsets and pining gentlemen spying from the verandah. Three-time Tony winner Jack O'Brien directs this delightful skirmish of wit between two self-declared bachelors tricked by their mischief-making friends into falling in love against their will and in spite of their own hearts.

The complete cast of Much Ado About Nothing features Steel Burkhardt (Balthazar); Jack Cutmore-Scott (Claudio); Austin Durant (Friar Francis, Sexton); John Glover (Leonato); Hamish Linklater (Benedick); David Manis (Antonio, Verges); Kathryn Meisle (Ursula); Ismenia Mendes (Hero); Brian Stokes Mitchell (Don Pedro); John Pankow (Dogberry); Pedro Pascal (Don John); Lily Rabe (Beatrice); Eric Sheffer Stevens (Borachio); and Zoë Winters (Margaret). The non-equity ensemble includes Matt Bittner, Alex Breaux, Carisa Cotera, Isabella Curti, Paco Lozano, and Matthew Russell.