Come trade the Philadelphia Fall for a Sicilian Summer! The tables are laid with olives, grapes, fresh bread and wine and in the air is the roar of the ocean, the bright scent of orange and lemon trees...and love, so when Don Pedro and his men stop in Messina on their way back from a year-long military campaign, their thoughts turn from warring to wooing.

Benedick and Beatrice, however, continue to wage their 'merry war of words' only surrendering to love through the trickery of their friends. The dashing Count Claudio meanwhile falls desperately in love with his host's daughter, Hero, but Don Pedro's half-brother, the bastard Don John, devises a plot to disgrace Hero and destroy the match. Claudio falls headlong into the trap and, believing her to be unfaithful, denounces his bride at the altar; Hero collapses and is left for dead. Of course, it all turns out to be, well, much ado about nothing, and Claudio and Hero will be reconciled thanks to the clumsy but surprisingly effective detective work of Constable Dogberry and his watchmen. Even Beatrice and Benedick, both sworn bachelors, leave off their warlike wooing long enough to marry.

Following their successful foray into the forest for A Midsummer Night's Dream (September 2001), the Undergroundlings return indoors to their permanent residence, Harnwell's picturesque Rooftop Lounge, for this production in the round of Shakespeare's dark comedy about a paradise disrupted by slander and evil.