Be careful when you settle into your seat at Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival this summer.

If you’re there to see “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged),” your usher might show up in the show.

The guy sitting next to you might show up in the show.

Heck, you might show up in the show.

“Abridged” is two hours and 15 minutes of laughs, pratfalls and audience participation: Three actors of the highest caliber present Shakespeare’s entire canon — as if shot out of a cannon.

o play “Kurt,” “Jason” and “Chris,” director Terrence O’Brien somehow found actors with the exact same names: Kurt Rhoads, Jason O’Connell and Christopher V. Edwards. (What are the odds?)

They are aided by prop mistress Katharine Abbruzzese, who interrupts her magazine reading long enough to provide a wheelbarrow full of wigs, rubbery mannequins and crowns.

The play — written by the Reduced Shakespeare Company and embellished by O’Brien & Co. — was a popular addition to last year’s festival. It returns this summer, with “Much Ado About Nothing” and “Pericles,” in repertory through Sept. 6.

The festival, now in its 23rd season, holds forth at Boscobel in Garrison, under a state-of-the-art tent that keeps the elements at bay. Ticketholders can picnic before the show, taking in spectacular views of the Hudson Highlands.

If you don’t know your Shylock from your Coriolanus, there’s still plenty to enjoy at “Abridged.” It is as accessible as can be, with physical humor to delight youngsters.

Things get bawdy at times, so squeamish parents beware. Some of it might be rated PG-13.

With 37 plays to cover — and all those sonnets — liberties are taken:

“Othello” is a rap song.

The brutal “Titus Andronicus” is presented as a cooking show, with Rhoads channeling Julia Child.

Shakespeare’s 16 comedies — many of which use similar plot twists and devices — are distilled into one.

The history plays are presented as a football game.

Everyone wears many hats, wigs and crowns.

Rhoads, a festival veteran, plays the Shakespeare scholar and Hamlet — and does a pretty mean Charlton Heston impersonation.

Edwards plays everyone from Juliet’s nurse to Julius Caesar to a laugh-out-loud Polonius, a la Tim Conway.

O’Connell, a standup veteran, is the evening’s clown, playing Shakespeare’s women (who, he is convinced, all vomit when they get upset). A master mimic, in “Hamlet,” his Claudius is Jack Nicholson and his Gertrude channels Carol Channing — sometimes at the same time.

In last year’s production, O’Connell created magic when he dropped the wig and delivered — with passion and conviction — the “What a piece of work is a man” speech from “Hamlet.”

At a recent performance, O’Connell recited the same words but this telling seemed routine, matter-of-fact, and lacked the former punch. That, one supposes, is the nature of live theater, of catching lightning in a bottle.

If you saw and liked “Abridged” last year, it’s still the wacky show you remember.

If you missed it, here’s your chance.

Get thee to a festival.

Photo by William Marsh: From left, Kurt Rhoads, Christopher V. Edwards, Jason O’Connell.

“The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)”
Where: Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, Route 9D, Garrison.
When: Through Sept. 6, in repertory with “Much Ado About Nothing” and “Pericles.”
Tickets: $29-$46.
Call: 845-265-9575.
Web: hvshakespeare.org
With: Kurt Rhoads, Christopher V. Edwards, Jason O’Connell, Katharine Abbruzzese.