Project: Shakespeare in the Parking Lot back to projects
Hamlet
Comedy of Errors
Julius Caesar
Loves Labours Lost
Presented by The Drilling Company

"Our mission with Shakespeare in the Parking Lot is to bring Shakespeare's Globe to a parking Lot on the Lower East Side. The only difference is that in the parking lot, we're all groundlings and that's what makes it so democratic. We've never turned anyone away and there's never a wait for tickets!" says artistic director Hamilton Clancy.

Shakespeare in the Parking Lot typically presents intrepid, bare-boned and often gloriously ingenious adaptations of the classics. For example, "Julius Caesar" was staged as a battle for control of an urban school system, with women playing Brutus and Cassius and "Love's Labours Lost" is a seemingly lighthearted battle of the sexes, played out in disguises and hidden agendas.

The pairing of "Love's Labours Lost" and "Julius Caesar" for the 2010 Shakespeare in the Park(ing) Lot was actually a thematic choice, not a marriage of convenience. We thought it was a good time to explore two works about folks getting along--and not--in love and politics," says Clancy.

The plays are presented in a working parking lot, so you can drive there but you should expect to pay the Muni-meter. Why 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. 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 been part of the fun for over 20 years.