Happy silver anniversary to Colonial Theatre's Shakespeare Festival!

The group has been presenting Shakespeare works in Westerly's Wilcox Park for 25 seasons, and it's staging one of the Bard's best (and best known) plays this summer: "Hamlet."

Director Harland Meltzer is setting the piece in "the moments before the First World War," and the cast brings together long-time favorites and new faces.

Among the Westerly first-timers are Jeremiah Clapp, who plays Hamlet, and Catherine Dupont, who portrays Ophelia. Clapp has acted at the Ohio Shakespeare Festival, Baltimore Center Stage, and the New World Performance Lab. Dupont has appeared with the Trinity Repertory Company (she is a graduate of the Brown/Trinity Rep MFA Program) and in theaters in New York and around the region.

The crowd-pleasing returnees, on the other hand, include Marion Markham, who, in addition to lots of past Colonial Theater performances, has toured internationally in "West Side Story" and performs her cabaret act at the Ocean House; Ed Franklin, who is making his 20th appearance with this Shakespeare Festival by returning to the role of Polonius; and Paul Romero, who plays King Claudius in "Hamlet" and who has taken on a wide range of roles here since 1996, including Petruchio in "The Taming of the Shrew."

"Hamlet," Wilcox Park, Broad Street, Westerly; runs July 20-Aug. 7; 8 p.m. Tues.-Sun.; free, donations accepted; thecolonialtheater.org.