Four years into the revival of its Summer Shakespeare Festival, the Old Globe is set to tackle the Bard's greatest play, "Hamlet," which will run in repertory with a teen-friendly "Two Gentlemen of Verona" and an updated version of the dark comedy "Measure for Measure."

Fresh off the best reviews of his career (for a modern-dress "Merchant of Venice" that played both in New York and Shakespeare's hometown of Stratford-Upon-Avon, England), Globe festival artistic director Darko Tresnjak will stage "Hamlet" for the first time in his career. Paul Mullins, who directed "Macbeth" at the festival two years ago, returns for "Measure for Measure." And Matt August, whose past Globe credits include the edgy comedies "Pig Farm" and "The Food Chain," helms "Two Gentlemen of Verona."

The three plays will run in repertory June 16 to Sept. 30 on the Globe's outdoor Lowell Davies Festival Theatre stage. All performances begin at 8 p.m. A 26-member resident company will perform all the roles. Single tickets go on sale at 10 a.m. May 18 at (619) 234-5623.

Tresnjak said this year's plays were chosen to appeal to all ages and to offer audience members a snapshot of Shakespeare at three different stages of his career. "Two Gentlemen of Verona," one of the Bard's earliest plays (1590), shows his youth and flashes of brilliance. "Hamlet" (1599) finds Shakespeare in the full flower of his genius, and "Measure for Measure" (1604) finds the mature playwright exploring new, darker subject matter.

"There's no question as to why we should do 'Hamlet,' it's being done everywhere. We don't really ever read 'Hamlet' for the first time, so much of its text is in our daily language already. It's the centerpiece of the festival," Tresnjak said. "We're doing 'Two Gentlemen' for younger audiences. It'll run under two hours and is great for short attention spans, and 'Measure for Measure' is a richer play for people wanting more. It has a visceral quality about it."

Tresnjak said he's hoping the mix of plays will have broad appeal to the public, especially coming off last year's festival, which was a mixed bag with audiences. Tresnjak's staging of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" last summer was the highest-grossing Shakespeare play in the Globe's recorded history. By contrast, his critically acclaimed production of the bloody "Titus Andronicus" last summer was a tough sell, leaving overall season sales for 2006 only slightly ahead of the year before. Because the festival is so expensive to stage, the Globe needs to see continuing growth in ticket sales this summer to make the revival financially feasible for the long term. Hopefully, this trio of plays will work with audiences.

"All three plays ask the same questions," Tresnjak said, "What is it to act well in the world? What is the right thing to do? When to forgive or kill or compromise your religious or moral beliefs?"

Here's a look at the three plays that make up this year's Summer Shakespeare Festival:

"Hamlet" -- Opens June 16 and runs in repertory through Sept. 30.

With 15 Shakespeare productions under his belt, Tresnjak says he's finally ready to tackle Shakespeare's masterpiece. "You prepare your whole life for directing 'Hamlet,'" Tresnjak said, "and I've given a lot of thought over the years about how to approach it."

Much of Tresnjak's prep time this past year was spent in Shakespeare's hometown of Stratford-Upon-Avon, where he directed "The Merchant of Venice" at the Swan Theatre to universally rapturous reviews. Tresnjak's lodgings were in Dover House, where the view from his second-story window was the church where the Bard's bones lie. Tresnjak describes the experience in Stratford as "extraordinary" and "life-changing."

Living and creating theater in the town where Shakespeare was born and died led Tresnjak to explore what life in England was like when "Hamlet" was written. Tresnjak's bible was James Shapiro's best-selling book "1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare." In that year, Queen Elizabeth's reign was nearing its end, rumors were rife about an invasion from Spain, the fight between Catholicism and Protestantism raged on, Shakespeare's Globe Theatre was torn down and rebuilt, and he turned out four of his greatest plays, culminating with "Hamlet."

"There was so much going on at the time he wrote 'Hamlet' and you could see it in the play … the ghosts of the old religion, the political uncertainty and the fear of invasion. The play is also haunted by the old theater," Tresnjak said, adding that he used Shapiro's book to shape his Elizabethan production of "Hamlet."

Set in medieval Denmark, "Hamlet" tells the story of the psychologically tortured Danish prince Hamlet, who is struggling with the sudden death of his father, King Hamlet, and the equally sudden marriage of his mother, Gertrude, to the king's brother, Claudius. One night, the king's ghost visits Hamlet and orders him to take revenge on Claudius for murdering him in his sleep at the castle Elsinore. Hamlet battles his own fears, contemplates suicide, kills his fiancee Ophelia's father, drives her to insanity and suicide and then lays a trap (with the help of a theater troupe) for the suspicious Claudius, who has planted spies and murderers around the castle to keep an eye on him.

"Hamlet" was revolutionary in its examination of human psychology and emotions, and the many different ways directors have chosen to explain Hamlet's mental struggle keep the play eternally fresh. Tresnjak's theory is that Shakespeare's inspiration for "Hamlet" was not the revenge tragedy at its heart, but the theater in which the playwright made his life.

"There's a line in the play where Hamlet says he'd be 'happy in a nutshell.' He wanted to be alone and wasn't sure if he really wanted to be king," Tresnjak said. "He's crumbling under the weight of expectations and it's not in his nature to be a killer. The theater teaches the artist to be a killer. He has to learn through acting what he has to do."

The actor Tresnjak has chosen to portray the troubled prince is Lucas Hall, seen at the Globe last year as young publisher John Seavering in "The Violet Hour."

"He has a degree of obsessiveness to his work that I like," Tresnjak said. "He pushes himself beyond the point I would ever push him, and he came here with 10 months of preparation for the role. I wouldn't consider doing it with anybody but him."

"Hamlet" will be performed at 8 p.m. June 16, 17, 28-30; July 11, 14, 19, 22, 25, 29 and 31; Aug. 4, 9, 12, 17,18, 23, 28 and 31; Sept. 1, 5, 7, 9, 14, 18, 21, 22, 25-27 and 30.

"Two Gentlemen of Verona" -- Opens June 20 and runs through Sept. 20.

Unlike Tresnjak, who is staging "Hamlet" for the first time, director Matt August is a veteran of "Two Gentlemen of Verona," which he staged two years ago (to much acclaim) for The Acting Company. Because the New York theater troupe tours its plays and draws a large student audience, August kept accessibility in mind when staging the early Shakespearean comedy. He pared the play down to a family-friendly two hours and -- despite the play's goofy plot twists -- he took the characters seriously.

"It's the least funny of the three plays (at the festival)," August said. "It's about four young kids who all leave home at the beginning of the play, and I felt it important to track the notion of young kids growing up and coming of age. That's something everyone in the audience, especially young audiences, can relate to."

In "Two Gentlemen of Verona," two young Veronese friends -- Valentine and Proteus -- fall in love with the same woman, the duke of Milan's daughter, Silvia. To win Silvia for himself, Proteus tells the duke about Valentine's plan to elope with Silvia and the duke exiles Valentine, who joins a band of thieves in the forest. Meanwhile, Proteus' abandoned girlfriend, Julia, arrives in Milan disguised as a boy to determine Proteus' whereabouts, and she gets hired on as his servant. Silvia rebuffs Proteus, flees Milan in search of Valentine and is soon abducted by outlaws. Much more comic mayhem ensues before all is set right with both friends and their lovers.

August said he sees the play as a triptych, where the action unfolds in three different worlds -- Verona, Milan and the forest.

His interpretation of Verona is that it is restrictive and suffocating and ruled by a hypocritical church.

"I wanted to create a world in Verona that the kids need to leave," August said. "So they go to Milan and they find they don't fit in there, either."

August's Milan will have the look and feel of a Restoration court, rife with debauchery and anarchy. This doesn't appeal to the friends, either, so they move on to the forest, which August describes as "darker, more dangerous, almost mythological."

August jokingly calls his "Two Gentlemen" staging "a Princess Bride Shakespeare or a Restoration Che Guevara story."

"It's about what loyalty, love and friendship mean and how our virgin impulses can get us into a tremendous amount of trouble."

"Two Gentlemen of Verona" will be performed at 8 p.m. June 20-21, July 1-3, July 10, 12, 15, 18, 21, 24, 27, 28; Aug. 1, 3, 7, 10, 15, 19, 24, 25, 30; Sept. 2, 4, 8, 12, 13, 15,16 and 20.

"Measure for Measure" -- Opens June 23 and runs through Sept. 28.

Director Paul Mullins first staged Shakespeare's "Measure for Measure" 10 years ago and returns to it an older and wiser man, just as Shakespeare revisited some of his favorite theatrical devices (dressing in disguise, mistaken identities) in "Measure for Measure," but as an older and wiser man.

" 'Measure for Measure' is an amazing look from a man late in his career who was fighting with the ideas of morality, government and how we judge each other," Mullins said. "It's a great little yarn and it has a story to tell."

Written later in Shakespeare's career, "Measure for Measure" is classified as a "problem play," because it doesn't fit neatly into the categories of comedy or tragedy. Although it has the usual comic relationship setups, it's also rife with crime, prostitution, sexual bargains, an out-of-wedlock pregnancy, a death sentence and even a beheading.

In "Measure for Measure," the Venetian duke Vincentio decides to leave his palace and secretly mingle among his fellow citizens dressed as a friar. In his absence, Vincentio's deputy Angelo cracks down on rampant crime, shuttering whorehouses and arresting fornicators like Claudio, a young man who has impregnated his girlfriend. When Angelo sentences Claudio to death, Claudio's sister Isabella, a novice-in-training, appeals for clemency. Angelo offers to exchange Claudio's life for Isabella's virginity. To protect Isabella, the disguised Vincentio tricks Angelo into a sexual encounter with a woman he believes is Isabella but is actually Angelo's former fiancee. Eventually all is set right again when Vincentio reveals himself and the various couples are "sentenced" to matrimony.

Mullins has kept the play's Viennese setting but moved the action forward several hundred years to the early 20th century.

"Turn-of-the-century Vienna was a fertile time of history, where there was a flowering of new ideas about psychology and art. It was a time of breaking old ties and learning about ourselves and the world," Mullins said. "This seemed the right environment for 'Measure for Measure.'"

Vienna was a center of modernism from 1890 to 1910, when an explosion of ideas emerged in the worlds of art (Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele), architecture (Josef Hoffman, Adolf Loos), music (Gustav Mahler, Arnold Schoenberg), theater (Arthur Schnitzler) and psychology (Sigmund Freud, Alfred Adler).

In "Measure for Measure," Mullins said he believes Shakespeare was questioning the status quo, just as the modernist thinkers did in 1900s Vienna, and by moving the play into that era, the story will have more resonance.

"Measure for Measure" will be performed at 8 p.m. June 23, 24, July 5-8, 13, 17, 20, 26; Aug. 2, 5, 8, 11, 14, 16, 21, 22, 26, 29; Sept. 6, 11, 19-23 and 28.