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

Seats are available on a first come first serve basis, with audience members often arriving early 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.

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. 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.

Directed by Jesse Ontiveros:

Macbeth and Banquo reminded director Jesse Ontiveros of Fidel and Che, and that was the genesis for his idea to set “Macbeth” in a banana republic. The play is about power and this production seeks perspective on its eternal themes from the political history of Latino cultures.

http://shakespeareintheparkinglot.com/macbeth.htm

July 30 to August 15 , 2015
SHAKESPEARE IN THE PARKING LOT’S SECOND PRODUCTION IN ITS NEW PARKING LOT.
Tragedy of outsized ambition will be staged as a coup in a banana republic

Parking Lot behind The Clemente (Clemente Soto Velez Cultural and Educational Center),
114 Norfolk Street (E. side of Norfolk St. between Delancey and Rivington)
Thursdays – Saturdays at 8:00 PM
FREE
Subways: F to Delancey Street, M to Essex Street.
Running time 1:30. Previews July 30 & 31, opens August 1.