Director Guy Hollands sees The Winter’s Tale, one of Shakespeare’s last and least-performed plays, not as a cold downer, but as an invigorating experience that celebrates nature’s long-awaited turn to spring. “What I really wanted,” says Hollands, from Scotland’s Citizens Theatre, “was for this production not to be just another of a great Shakespeare play, but something more than that, which fully engages lots of people involved in the company, particularly the young people.” People’s Light’s unique rural campus transforms into festival grounds lit with hand-crafted glass lanterns, where the cast, playing a traveling theater troupe, mingle, entertain and serve hot cider. The play itself — a magical romance, intense but ultimately uplifting — features live music and the traditional burning-in-effigy of the Witch of Winter. The revels continue in People’s Light’s Farmhouse Bistro. No, not just another show.

Through March 3, $25-$45, People’s Light & Theatre Co., 39 Conestoga Road, Malvern, 610-644-3500, peopleslight.org.