SHAKESPEARE IN
THE PARK(ING) LOT

2012 Season to feature
"The Merry Wives of Windsor" and "Coriolanus"

"The Merry Wives of Windsor" July 12 to 28
"Coriolanus" August 2 to 18
Municipal Parking Lot at the corner of Ludlow and Broome Streets, Manhattan.
(Subways: F to Delancey Street, walk one block south.)
Both shows play Thursdays - Saturdays at 8:00 PM
More info call 212-873-9050
Cost: FREE!

 

ABOUT SHAKESPEARE IN THE PARK(ING) LOT

Shakespeare in the Park(ing) Lot, presented by The Drilling Company (Hamilton Clancy, Artistic Director), is a summer New York institution that performs free Shakespeare productions in a municipal parking lot at the corner of Ludlow and Broome Streets in Manhattan's Lower East Side.

Over its 20 years, there have been over 50 productions of Shakespeare's plays for over 40,000 patrons.

The plays are presented in a working parking lot, so you can drive there but you should expect to pay the Muni-meter.

Why a parking lot? "It is a tremendously accessible gathering place in the heart of the city. Like most companies that do Shakespeare we are following the spirit of Joseph Papp. But putting our own spin on it by placing it in a parking lot, making an urban wrinkle," says founding artistic director Hamilton Clancy. Shows are offered while the lot is in use. (Performances this season are Thursdays through Saturdays at 8:00 PM for both shows.) The action sometimes happens around a parked car which drives away during a performance. At such times, the players stop and the audience moves its chairs, pausing the performance the same way a show would stop for rain uptown in Central Park. It's all part of the fun.

Seats are available on a first come first serve basis, with audience members often arriving as early as 7:00 PM to secure a place. You are encouraged and welcome to bring your own chair. Once seats are gone, blankets are spread out. "We've never turned anyone away and there's never a wait for tickets!" brags Clancy.

The productions are typically intrepid, bare-boned and often gloriously ingenious adaptations of the classics. For example, last summer, Hamilton Clancy staged "Julius Caesar" as a battle for control of an urban school system, with women playing Brutus and Cassius.

OUR 2010 SEASON'S TRAGEDY, "JULIUS CAESAR"

Ivory Aquino and Hamilton Clancy in "Julius Ceasar." Photo by Lee Wexler/Images for Innovation.

The company stresses that the Parking Lot has now become a versatile theater where it presents its work, not unlike the Globe was to Shakespeare. Hamilton Clancy writes, "We believe the Parking Lot can be a container for a range of directorial interpretations and perspectives. We're in the Parking Lot because it's a great place to present the play, not as a site specific interpretation."

This summer's offerings are supported by the Department for Cultural Affairs and the the New York State Council on the Arts, Con Edison, and the Department of Transportation.

 

LAST SEASON

"Hamlet"
July 28 to August 13, 2011

Hamlet (foreground, L--Alessandro Colla) and Laertes (foreground R--McKey Carpenter) duel. Photo by Lee Wexler/Images for Innovation.	Amanda Dillard as Ophelia, Alessandro Colla as Hamlet. Photo by Lee Wexler/Images for Innovation.

 

"The Comedy of Errors"
July 7 to July 23, 2011
Shakespeare's comedy of mischance and mistaken identity
set in a modern pizzeria in Little Italy.

Garrett Burreson, Jack Herholdt Photo by Lee Wexler/Images for Innovation	Grant Turnbull, Lisa Pettersson, Sergio Diaz Photo by Lee Wexler/Images for Innovation

 

REVIEWS