Shakespeare hits the road while Central Park Theater is closed
Free Shakespeare in the Park, one of the old treasures of New York City summer, will be smaller and touring this year as a major renovation of the program's Central Park home is underway.
The Public Theater, the nonprofit organization that presents the annual Shakespeare festival, announced Tuesday that instead of the usual large-scale productions at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park, it will host a smaller production of “The Comedy of Errors” this year. ” would send to parks and other parks. squares across the city between Memorial Day and the end of June, followed by outdoor screenings of a filmed production of “Much Ado About Nothing” in July, August and early September.
The production of “The Comedy of Errors” is a 90-minute bilingual musical adaptation by director Rebecca Martinez and composer Julian Mesri, which audiences performed last year in city parks and recreation centers as part of the theater's mobile unit. This summer's five-week touring production will feature a slightly larger company and visit a number of larger locations than last year's production. It starts in Manhattan, with a week in a plaza in front of the New York Public Library's flagship building in Bryant Park, followed by a series of dates at Hudson Yards and other locations in Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, the Bronx and Staten Island. All performances will be free.
“It is not a replacement for the Delacorte – it is not intended to be a replacement – but I hope that as an experiment it will be so successful that this extended version of what the mobile unit does can continue indefinitely,” says Oskar Eustis, the artistic director of the public, said in an interview.
The filmed production of “Much Ado About Nothing,” directed by Kenny Leon and starring Danielle Brooks and Grantham Coleman, was shot during a run in Central Park in 2019; the film will be shown outdoors for free at locations in all five boroughs.
“Much Ado About Nothing,” filmed for the PBS series Great Performances, will also be one of four Shakespeare in the Park productions streaming online in May and June. The others are a 2023 production of “Hamlet,” a 2022 production of “Richard III” and a 2021 production called “Merry Wives.” Streaming the Great Performances films is free, but you must register online to gain access.
The Delacorte has been closed since last fall for $78 million innovation. A groundbreaking took place in October and the project is expected to be completed sometime next year, with Shakespeare expected to be back in Central Park in the summer of 2025.