Theater can be a tough sell in the summer. Even New York can be a tough sell in the summer. The Hamptons will have the parties, Fire Island will have the barbecues, Jones Beach will have the rest of us. But in the next few months, a number of shows might be able to keep us off the shore and in our theater seats.

Choose carefully, and you won’t risk getting sand in your metaphorical suit.

FESTIVALS

Pride of place still goes to the Public’s Shakespeare in Central Park. Free Bard, the glimmering lake beyond the stage, and thou: No summer would be complete without them. This season, the Public mounts two productions – Mark Lamos’s “As You Like It” (opening June 25), and George C. Wolfe’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” (August 9).

But you can only handle that line in the Park twice. The other reason to put off that time-share in Maine? The Lincoln Center Festival (July 12-31). Little thrills of anticipation over “My Life as a Fairy Tale”(July 27) should already be chasing up and down your spine. The team of Chen Shi-Zheng and Stephin Merritt, who brought us “The Orphan of Zhao,” return to present Hans Christian Andersen, with a libretto by Erik Ehn. As usual, they’ll be in august company: Robert Wilson will move ever so slowly to center stage with his premiere of “I La Galigo”(July 13).

And the really big-ticket items at the Festival – like Yukio Ninagawa’s Noh plays – should be like mini-vacations in themselves. In Giorgio Strehler’s classic staging of “Arlecchino, Servant of Two Masters”(July 20) the Piccolo Teatro production hews sheer delight out of bare boards. Ariane Mnouchkine’s mammoth “Le Dernier Caravanserail (Odyssees)”(July 17) will need all of Damrosch Park for its production.

Going from the gargantuan to the lilliputian, St. Ann’s will host the Toy Theater Festival (June 10-19). The Great Small Works company will show your young ones subversive and artistically resonant things to do with all the Star Wars figures you bought them in May. Brits Off Broadway, the festival that doesn’t know it’s actually an entire season, continues on for the next several months. Highlights should include Alan Ayckbourn’s “Private Fears in Public Places”(June 14), directed by Sir Alan himself, and “Faster” (June 7), the Filter Theatre’s adaptation of James Gleick’s best seller “Faster: The Acceleration of Just About Everything.”

Turning our attention to homegrown playwrights, SPF, the Summer Play Festival at Theater Row (July 5-31), will bring new pieces from such soon-to-be-household names as Kenny Finkle, Chris Lee, and Gordon Dahlquist. By charging just 10 bucks a pop, the SPF should give the movie theaters down the block a run for their money.

If you’re willing to drive or take the train up to Annandale-on-Hudson, this year’s Bard SummerScape (July 8-August 28) turns its attention to Americana. Dangling Frank Gehry’s Fisher Center as bait, its organizers reeled in Daniel Fish to direct Clifford Odets’s “Rocket to the Moon”(July 14).

Finally, we must simply give way before the New York Fringe Festival (August 12-28). An intentionally inflammatory sampling of the shows selected so far includes: “The Magic Metro Card,” “The Port Authority Throwdown” and “The Secret Diary of Jenna Bush.” You get the idea.

BROADWAY (and BAM)

We only get a handful of Broadway openings this summer, but they offer excellent opportunities to get together and grouse about the Tony Awards. Elaine May’s “After the Night and the Music”(June 1) leads the pack, with Jon Robin Baitz’s “The Paris Letter” following close on its heels (June 12). This tale of Wall Street schadenfreude is also a welcome reunion for Mr. Baitz and his puckish muse, Ron Rifkin.

For a straight shot of overwhelming talent (no chaser), try W. Somerset Maugham’s “The Constant Wife,” starring Lynn Redgrave and Kate Burton (previews start May 27). Why not simply prostrate yourself before the Redgrave altar and make it a double feature? Vanessa Redgrave stalks her prey in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s production of “Hecuba” at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (June 17).

“Lennon” (in previews June 28), the jukebox musical about John Lennon, has had both bad buzz and good, but it seems sporting to only imagine the best. Adding some salsa to that beat will be “The Mambo Kings” (in previews July 20). Based on Oscar Hijuelos’s novel “The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love” (and the movie of the same name), this story of Cuban musicians in New York promises only the right sort of heat.

And speaking of, um, music – “The Blonde in the Thunderbird” (July 8) will feature Suzanne Somers singing some original songs at the Brooks Atkinson.

OFF-BROADWAY

Testing dangerous waters, some off-Broadway theaters are also producing plays this summer without linking them to festivals. Each play floats alone, unprotected, like an abandoned scuba diver batting away sharks with his oxygen tank.

“Terrorism” just opened with Elizabeth Marvel (the thinking man’s bombshell) on Theater Row (May 23) and Second Stage snared S. Epatha Merkerson for “Birdie Blue”(June 23).

Finally, the happy fallout from “Thom Pain” just keeps coming. When the Daryl Roth 2 held over Will Eno’s surprise hit, Bob Balaban’s production of Paul Grellong’s “Manuscript”(June 12) had to move into the big digs at the Daryl Roth Theatre. Cross your fingers for something as death-defying as the theater’s previous tenant, De La Guarda. If Pablo Schreiber’s performance in readings is any indication, he’ll provide all the flight they need.