HAPPY BIRTHDAY SHAKESPEARE - 457 to be Presented by The Drilling Company's Shakespeare in the Parking Lot Company

Will Shakespeare turns 457 on Friday, April 23. So on April 23 and 24, from 7:00 PM to 8:00 PM, members of The Drilling Company's Shakespeare in the Parking Lot Company will mount "Happy Birthday Shakespeare-457" in the parking lot of The Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural & Educational Center, 107 Suffolk Street. An energetic, one-hour collection of outdoor performances will be offered, all free to the public, all live and limited to 50 audience members. It's the first free Shakespeare to be offered in NYC in the year since the quarantine.

Led by Jane Bradley and Kathleen Simmonds, core players of the company will perform great speeches, scenes, sonnets and songs from the Shakespearean Canon.

Hamilton Clancy, Artistic Director of The Drilling Company, home of Shakespeare in the Parking Lot, writes, "It's essential to get our theater professionals back to work and to bring live theater safely back to the City. Who better to lead the way than William Shakespeare?"

Masks and temperature checks will be required and social distancing will be observed. Participation is free but only 50 patrons will be allowed per night. Admission is on a first-come-first-served basis and registrations are strongly recommended. To save yourself a place, reserve at: https://happy457will.eventbrite.com.

ABOUT THE DRILLING COMPANY & SHAKESPEARE IN THE PARKING LOT

The Drilling Company, led by Artistic Director Hamilton Clancy, is the producer of Shakespeare in the Parking Lot, a series of free Shakespeare productions mounted on the Lower East Side since 1995. That attraction began in the Seward Park Urban Renewal Area and moved to the Parking Lot of The Clemente in 2015, where it has appeared each summer thereafter, interrupted only by the 2020 Covid shutdown. The Drilling Company is also exclusive producer of plays for Bryant Park Presents Shakespeare, making it the second-largest free Shakespeare producer in NYC.

The company is also an incubator of new American plays; it produced over 350 new works from 1999 to 2014 in its intimate theater space at 236 West 78th Street, formerly 78th Street Theater Lab. Noted productions there include the long-running comedy, "The Norwegians" by C. Denby Swanson (www.norwegians.us).

During the pandemic, the company launched a podcast series, GOOD NOISE, with audiocasts of new plays, poetry, and new offerings of previous premieres. It is now available on Apple, Spotify, Audible and https://goodnoise.podbean.com. Episodes include "I Hear America Singing " by Walt Whitman, "STAY" by C. Denby Swanson and "You Were No Accident" by Paul Siefken. Coming soon is "ON TIME" by Brian Dykstra.

Shakespeare in the Parking Lot is participant in NY PopsUp (https://www.nypopsup.com/), an expansive festival of hundreds of pop-up performances intended to revitalize the spirit and emotional well-being of New York citizens through the energy of live performance.

For info on upcoming Drilling Company productions call 212-873-9050 or visit www.shakespeareintheparkinglot.com and www.drillingcompany.org.

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