AS YOU LIKE IT & MACBETH to Tour Free Parks Performances for Hip to Hip's 20th Season

Directors Jason Marr, Joy Marr, and Joel Leffert bring Shakespeare to Queens, Staten Island, and beyond.

By: Chloe Rabinowitz Jul. 23, 2026

AS YOU LIKE IT & MACBETH to Tour Free Parks Performances for Hip to Hip's 20th Season

Classic theatre will break free from indoor stages as Hip to Hip Theatre Company marks its landmark 20th anniversary season with a summer tour presenting Shakespeare's As You Like It (co-directed by Jason Marr and Joy Marr) and Macbeth (directed by Joel Leffert) in repertory.

Audiences can experience two contrasting theatrical masterpieces performed by the same cast in local public parks throughout Queens, Staten Island, Jersey City and Southampton. As You Like It offers a joyful, music-filled escape into the Forest of Arden, while Macbeth delivers a fast-paced descent into ambition and madness. The repertory format showcases the actors' versatility across comedy and tragedy.

Thirty minutes before each performance, Hip to Hip offers Kids & the Classics, an interactive workshop that gives children a chance to interact with the text by previewing the story and by creating links between the text and their own lives through theatre games and close reading.

Broadway veteran and longtime Hip to Hip collaborator Joel Leffert returns to direct Macbeth. Speaking about the play, Leffert says, 'It continues to fascinate audiences. The shortest of Shakespeare's tragedies, it practically races through wars and bloody violence to its cautionary conclusion. Yet we have plenty of time to sympathize with Macbeth despite his horrible actions. Perhaps it is the gorgeous language and clarity of thought he shares with us, or the battle he wages between ambition and conscience that strikes a chord.' Leffert went on to note the play's striking contemporary relevance: ''Fair is foul and foul is fair,' Shakespeare tells us. The state of the world is undone, turned upside-down. 'Nothing is but what is not.' Sound familiar?'

The anniversary tour kicks off on July 28th on the quad of Queens College and will travel to nine other neighborhoods through August 22nd. All performances are completely free to the public. No tickets or reservations are required. Attendees are encouraged to bring blankets or low chairs and picnics.

The repertory cast includes: Anneke Angstadt, Brianna Cabrera*, Bishal Dahal, Haley Kofuku Henson, Salim Ishimwe, Sam Kebede*, Joel Leffert*, Bree Marr, Jason Marr*, Joy Marr*, Ren Ragsdale, Diana Rendon, and Kelechi Udenkwo (*appears courtesy of Actors' Equity Association).

Saturday, August 22 @ 7:30 pm
Agawam Park (25 Pond Lane, Southampton)

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