6 Best Outdoor Theater Experiences and Venues in the U.S.

Ellen Carpenter, AFAR

This summer, New Yorkers will see the return of Shakespeare in the Park after the program took a hiatus in 2024 for renovations of the Delacorte Theater. Since 1962, luminaries including Meryl Streep, Al Pacino, Denzel Washington, and Pedro Pascal have recited the Bard’s words in the open-air venue for a rapt audience experiencing a beloved warm-weather tradition.

Enjoying theater in the great outdoors is a popular pastime beyond New York City too. Every summer across the USA, companies come together to present classic plays, world premiere operas, and razzle-dazzle musicals to diverse audiences.

“There’s nothing like experiencing live theater under the open sky,” says Tim Bond, the artistic director of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF). “It taps into that ancient tradition of gathering outdoors to hear stories, and it keeps us connected to the roots of where OSF—and really, theater itself—began. It’s timeless, and it’s magic.”

While many companies have moved to indoor facilities (inclement weather can make Chekhov even more melancholy), there are still plenty of opportunities to enjoy theater outside. Many offer free tickets or host school groups and summer youth programs.

Here’s what people can expect from this year’s Shakespeare in the Park program, as well as five other outdoor theater events and venues in the country worth checking out.

4. American Players Theatre

Each summer, around 100,000 people travel to the woods of rural southwest Wisconsin to see some of the best classical theater in the country. The American Players Theatre opened in 1980 with a performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. And in 2025 theatergoers can see the Shakespeare favorite anew, although still how it was presented 45 years ago (and 500 years ago in Elizabethan England): under an open sky and, notably, without mics.

The APT employs voice and text coaches to work with the actors to dissect a play and teach them how to properly project so their voices reach the last row of the 1,075-seat Hill Theatre. This summer, see nine shows in repertory, four at its indoor theater; the others at the Hill are Noel Coward’s Fallen Angels, William Inge’s Picnic, Nilo Cruz’s Anna in the Tropics, and Shakespeare’s A Winter’s Tale and A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

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