Chris Shea calls it the best entertainment value around.

He’s talking about “Free Shakespeare,” the series of summer productions he’s been staging at outdoor venues throughout the area for the past three years.

“It’s free, and it’s high quality,” says the 29-year-old Fairmont High School graduate who is determined to dispel negative notions about the Bard of Avon. “I hope our audiences are able to look at Shakespeare in a new light and not have the stigma that it may have acquired in English classes. Shakespeare touches everything about humanity. He was ahead of his time.”

The 14-member company is currently performing “The Merchant of Venice.” In his program notes, Shea says it’s a play that “leaps off the page and out of the 16th century,” dealing with contemporary issues ranging from bullying to religious intolerance.

“This is a challenging play that poses challenging questions,” he writes. “Without challenge, there can be no growth.”

The drama is playing at the University of Dayton’s ArtStreet this weekend and later this month will be at the Antioch College Amphitheater in Yellow Springs. In August, the show travels to the Rosewood Arts Centre in Kettering as well as the Oregon District, South Park and Wegerzyn Gardens MetroPark in Dayton.

“Theater started outside and in many ways I feel it was never meant to be put inside in a box,” Shea says.

Regarding that special history surrounding outdoor dramas, Shea says he’ll never forget the “magical moment” when he learned a member of his Yellow Springs audience had appeared in the first production ever staged in the Antioch Amphitheater. The Antioch Shakespeare Festival was known throughout the country in the 1950s.

Channeling a love for theater

Shea says he fell in love with theater when he performed in Muse Machine productions as a teenager. He later acted in a variety of community theater productions at Dayton Playhouse, Beavercreek Community Theatre and the Dayton Theatre Guild. After performing in melodramas and vaudeville productions in Colorado and California, he trained with the PCPA Theatre Fest in Santa Maria, Calif.

“Theirs was a holistic approach to the work,” says Shea, who also practices reiki, a Japanese technique for relaxation and stress reduction. “The idea is that you can become a better artist by becoming a better human being.”

He fell in love with Shakespeare, he says, when he was involved in a production of “Romeo and Juliet” at Sinclair Community College directed by Marsha Hanna and Rocco Dal Vera.

“They helped us unlock the secrets Shakespeare gives you,” says Shea, who also worked with a roving Shakespeare company in Seattle.

When he returned to Dayton in the fall of 2009, he casually gathered a group together that performed “Hamlet” the following summer.

“It was a big success and people seemed to want more,” says Shea, adding that the primary goal has always been to have fun. He says it’s called a “play” for a reason.

In addition to his summer productions, Shea conducts Shakespeare play-reading groups on the first Monday of each month. That project will now have a permanent home at the Dayton Visual Arts Center in downtown Dayton.

“Anyone can come, and we do it as a round-robin so that no one is assigned a specific character,” he says. “We’re hoping it will make people feel more comfortable with the language and not feel so scared of it.” The next get-together is Aug. 6.

Shea, who fills in for Niki Dakota on WYSO’s “Excursions” and conducts artist residencies for Muse Machine, has also conducted “Shakespeare for Life,” a reading marathon in which the complete works of Shakespeare were read over a one-week period, with participants reading around-the-clock. It was all part of a “Relay for Life” fund raiser.

Shea’s summer company is made up of a mix of professional and amateur actors who rehearse for about a month, then don simple costumes —T-shirts with their character’s name on them. The shows always include some cast members appearing on stage for the very first time. Shea believes it’s important to pay his actors so they all benefit from the monies tossed into baskets or hats at the end of each performance.

Shakespeare fans

Wright State University senior Chelsey Cavender portrays Portia in “Free Shakespeare’s” production, and also appeared in Wright State’s production of the same play this past season.

“I think one of the most interesting things about Shakespeare is the women he writes,” says Cavender, who is from Fairfield. “You won’t find a weak one in the bunch and it’s refreshing to work on material like this at a time when the media and society don’t always give young women strong role models.”

In 2010, Bill Styles and his wife attended a performance of “Hamlet” at Courthouse Square during “Free Shakespeare’s” initial season.

“While I thought the cast varied in the quality of their performances, several of them were so very outstanding that I returned again and again to see them in other locations around town,” recalls the Kettering man. ” I ended up enthusiastically sitting through six performances and wondering whether I might possibly make it to be cast in any role in future performances.”

The next summer, Styles found himself auditioning for “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and was delighted to be included in the cast. It was his first audition in more than 40 years.

“This time I was impressed with every single one of my fellow cast members, all of whom were decades younger than I, ” he says. “Just watching them develop their characters was a real learning experience, and I enjoyed the camaraderie that we all developed early on.”

This summer, he’s appearing in “The Merchant of Venice.”

Styles says he was a bit hesitant about bringing his 5-year-old granddaughter to the play last summer when he appeared in “Midsummer Night’s Dream.” He wondered if she would last through the evening.

“Not to worry!” Styles says. “She took in not only one but five full performances.”