As go the daylight hours in summer, so goes the stage. Or something like that. If only eloquence came as easily as it did for the Bard.

In other words: Long summer days bring long summer plays.

In other words: The Hawai'i Shakespeare Festival, which has become a summer staple for Honolulans, is back for its seventh season, bringing with it a trio of plays that aren't your average on-stage fluff.

This year, festival founders are taking on three of the big ones: "Othello" (directed by Scott Rogers), "Henry V" (directed by Tony Pisculli) and "The Merchant of Venice (directed by Linda Johnson). In years past, less-familiar plays like "Titus Andronicus" and "King John" were on the bill, but this year, they're kind of playing it straight, said festival co-founder Pisculli.

That's not to say they're playing it safe. With the largest number of cast members to ever participate in the festival (a combined total of between 50 and 60) and with added performances to accommodate audience demand (last year every performance was sold out), this year's event is going to be the biggest since the festival started in 2001.

As in years past, don't count on things being too by-the-book.

"We do take liberties with our mainstream productions, and we try to make them relevant to a modern audience. We're not particularly reverential," said Pisculli. "But don't take that the wrong way. There's a deep, deep love for Shakespeare, but we're not doing museum Shakespeare. We do cut these plays quite a bit, and we take some sort of liberties, but this year that's mostly in the cutting."

Meaning, no grand liberties have been taken this time around. Just minor ones.

For example, "The Merchant of Venice" will be played by an all-female cast in a 1940s setting. But that's a petty embellishment compared to, say, "Romeo and Juliet" in a strip club, one of the more extreme adaptations that Pisculli has done.

And what's a summer of Shakespeare without a proper lady in the house? Though she won't be in the house literally, consider Dame Judi Dench there in spirit.

The British actress and master of Shakespearean drama is the official patron of the Hawai'i Shakespeare Festival. Upon an invitation by University of Hawai'i professor emeritus Terence Knapp, to whom the annual festival is dedicated, Dench agreed to the honorary title.

Dench and Knapp are long-time friends.