NYC Guide to FREE Shakespeare in NYC Parks

There’s a bounty of the Bard in NYC this summer, with multiple local theater groups performing Shakespeare dramas and comedies in multiple NYC parks, including such popular plays as Hamlet and All’s Well That Ends Well.

It’s all FREE and outdoors. Most performances are first come, first served, but others require reservations to manage space.

Here’s where to brush up your Shakespeare through September, so you can start quoting it now (apologies to the musical Kiss Me Kate), plus a few non-Shakespeare classics by theater groups which specialize in Shakespeare –

Listed in calendar order.

FREE concerts, theater and dance performances in NYC parks_nyctravelguru — Photo: Hudson Classical Theater Company

Hudson Classical Theater Company: Julius Caesar

Thursday, May 29-Sunday, June 22 – Hudson Classical Theater Company kicks off its 22nd season with Julius Caesar about strangers who plot an assassination with idealistic intentions but deadly consequences. In an era of political turmoil, Shakespeare’s tragic history play is a grim reminder still topical since Shakespeare wrote it in the 1500s that violence cannot save democracy.

Performances are at 6:30pm, Thursdays through Sundays each week, behind The Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument on the North Patio at 89th Street and Riverside Drive
Cushions are provided; seating is on the steps around the monument
FREE, but donations are accepted.

The Public Mobile Unit: Much Ado About Nothing

Thursday, May 29-Sunday, June 29 – The Public Theater’s Mobile Unit, which tours one-act versions of Shakespeare plays to locations throughout NYC, mounts a song-and-Spanish-filled Much Ado About Nothing, a sparkling romantic comedy centering on two frenemies who fall in love.

Adapted by director Rebecca Martínez and songwriter Julián Mesri, the same team behind last summer’s bilingual smash The Comedy of Errors, this merry mounting stars Keren Lugo and Nathan M. Ramsey as Beatrice and Benedick.

FREE – no tickets required but you can register to receive location details and weather policy.
Various locations in all five boroughs. See the complete schedule.
Limited chair seating is available at all locations but is first come, first served

Two actors in period costume in a Shakespeare play in a NYC park_evelynkanter — Photo: New York Classical

NY Classical Theatre: All’s Well That Ends Well

Tuesday, June 3-Sunday, July 6 – Since 2000, New York Classical Theatre has been presenting environmental stagings of vintage plays for free in Manhattan parks. Audiences literally follow the action as the performers move through the green spaces.

This summer’s offering is Shakespeare’s rarely mounted problem comedy All’s Well That Ends Well about a clever young woman who will do absolutely anything to land the man she adores.

FREE – No tickets required, but you can make a reservation to be informed about weather-related cancelations.
Post-show donations are encouraged.

Multiple locations:

Central Park on the Upper West Side June 2-22;
Carl Schurz Park on the Upper East Side June 24-29;
Castle Clinton in The Battery (July 1-6). Bring your own chairs or blankets.

Smith Street Stage: Henry V

Thursday, June 5-Sunday, June 29 – This actor-led troupe has been presenting free shows in Brooklyn’s Carroll Park since 2010.

This summer’s offering is Shakespeare’s history epic Henry V about the newly minted King of England as he strives to be seen as a powerful leader. In a challenge to gender norms, actress McLean Peterson portrays the title role, getting to deliver that iconic St. Crispin’s Day Speech.

FREE – no tickets required but post-show donations are encouraged.
Carroll Park, enter at Carroll and Smith Streets in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn.
Arrive at least a half hour early to snag one of the folding chairs.

Shakespeare Downtown: Tiger Tail

Thursday, June 12-Sunday, June 22 – Since 2016, Shakespeare Downtown has been presenting classic plays (not all by the Bard!) inside the Castle Clinton National Monument, a circular, roofless, sandstone fort in The Battery that has served many purposes over the past two centuries.

This year’s show is Tiger Tale. It’s not Shakespeare, but a rarely produced late play by Tennessee Williams, which inspired by the Elia Kazan movie Baby Doll, which was actually an adaptation of two earlier Williams works. A Mississippi cotton gin owner with a young wife clashes with a rival who decides to settle the score by wooing the child bride. A three-hander full of Southern gothic heat and sexual tension.

FREE. Tickets required and distributed first come, first served starting 30 minutes before showtime.
Castle Clinton National Monument in The Battery. Click here for a map.

Boomerang Theatre Company: Richard II

Saturday, June 21-Sunday, July 20 – For its 26th season, this scrappy theatre troupe presents Richard II, Shakespeare’s infrequently seen tragedy about a fallible, erratic king brought down by those closest to him. Aimee Todoroff, the former managing director of the League of Independent Theater, helms the production.

FREE but advance reservations are encouraged.
The lawn just inside 69th Street and Central Park West. Bring your own chairs or blankets.

Hudson Classical Theater Company: Sense and Sensibility

Thursday, June 26-Sunday, July 20 – Hudson Classical Theater Company continues its three-show season with a stage adaptation of Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen’s romantic novel centering on the Dashwood sisters as they navigate society and suitors as single women on a small income. Prepare for dancing, dueling and I do-ing!

6:30pm, Thursdays through Sundays
FREE – no tickets required but post-show donations are encouraged.
Behind The Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument on the North Patio at 89th Street and Riverside Drive on the Upper West Side. Cushions are provided.

The Classical Theatre of Harlem: Memnon

Saturday, July 5-Sunday, July 27 – One of NYC’s most celebrated Black companies, The Classical Theatre of Harlem has been mounting inventive takes on old favorites since 1999.

This summer, they go a step further with a new play by Will Power that fills in a gap in mythology, the lost saga of Memnon, warrior king of the Ethiopians, who aided the Trojans during their infamous war with the Greeks. An act of cultural resurrection, Memnon kicks off at the end of Homer’s Iliad and is written in iambic hexameter.

Carl Cofield, who directed the play’s world premiere last year at California’s Getty Villa, helms this production, which stars Eric Berryman in the title role. Yes, it’s a tragedy, but The Classical Theatre of Harlem keeps it family-friendly with dance, audience interaction and an 80-minute running time.

FREE – no tickets required but post-show donations are encouraged.
Richard Rodgers Amphitheater in Marcus Garvey Park, enter at 122nd Street and Mount Morris Park West in Harlem.
Seating is first come, first served, but the theatre has benches, not chairs, so everyone can squeeze in.

Hudson Classical Theater Company: The Lady from the Sea

Thursday, July 24-Sunday, August 17 – This small but talented troupe wraps up its season with The Lady from the Sea, a departure from the group’s normal schedule of Shakespeare classics – and the only non-Shakespeare play on this list.

Lady from the Sea is Ibsen’s drama about a lighthouse keeper’s daughter torn between her landlocked marriage and the sailor she once loved. The Hudson River provides the perfect backdrop for this water-themed classic

FREE – no tickets required but post-show donations are encouraged.
Behind The Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument on the North Patio at 89th Street and Riverside Drive on the Upper West Side. Cushions are provided.

Hip to Hip Theatre Company: The Tempest and Hamlet

Tuesday, August 5-Saturday, August 23 – Since 2007, the Hip to Hip Theatre Company has been touring professional outdoor mountings of Shakespeare plays to parks in Queens and beyond. With energetic actors, 90-minute running times and pre-show Kids & the Classics interactive workshops, Hip to Hip’s no-cost productions are a great way to introduce children to Shakespeare’s poetry and rhymes , which are the precursor of rap.

This summer the troupe presents The Tempest and Hamlet in rep. Hamlet, of course, is a bloody tragedy about the grieving Prince of Denmark, including witches, so The Tempest is a better bet for families, an enthralling tale of revenge, romance and forgiveness.

FREE – no tickets required but post-show donations are encouraged.
Various parks in Queens, Jersey City and Southampton.
The complete schedule is on the company’s website. Bring your own blankets or chairs.

The Public Theater’s Shakespeare in the Park: Twelfth Night

Thursday, August 7-Sunday, September 14 – The renovation of Central Park’s Delacorte Theater includes more efficient entry and lighting, and new bathrooms.

The Public Theater’s inaugural Shakespeare in the Park production in the overhauled venue is Twelfth Night, a sparkling comedy about the romantic complications that ensue after fraternal twins are separated during a shipwreck.

Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o and her real-life brother Junior Nyong’o are siblings Viola and Sebastian; Khris Davis and Sandra Oh are their respective love interests, Orsino and Olivia; Peter Dinklage is the mercilessly mocked Malvolio; and Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Daphne Rubin-Vega are also in this cast of cutups.

How to get tickets: Tickets are required. No admission without a ticket. There are multiple ways to try to snag FREE tickets:

in person at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park starting at noon every performance day (with three separate lines for the general public, seniors and individuals with disabilities);
the in-person lottery at The Public Theater at noon every performance day;
various in-person distribution sites in the outer boroughs for specific performances;
a digital lottery via TodayTix;
an in-person standby line before each performance.

Details are on The Public’s website. A Public Theater Patron ID is required to receive FREE tickets, so be sure to register for one in advance.

The newly revamped Delacorte Theater is in Central Park, enter at 81st Street and Central Park West, or 79th Street and Fifth Avenue.

Public Works: Pericles

Wednesday, August 29-Tuesday, September 2 – We’re cheating with this one since it takes place indoors at the glorious Cathedral of St. John the Divine, but it is FREE.

The Public Theater’s invaluable Public Works program, which turns Shakespeare shows into participatory community pageants, presents a new choral adaptation of Pericles by playwright-songwriter Troy Anthony that uses Gospel music and the uplifting energy of the Black church to tell this rollicking adventure about faith. Carl Cofield from The Classical Theatre of Harlem directs.

FREE, but tickets are required.
Details about ticket distribution have not yet been finalized. In the past, Public Works shows followed the Shakespeare in the Park model.
We will update this article once we have the info.

Cathedral of St. John the Divine is at 1047 Amsterdam Avenue at 112th Street.

Thanks to our friends at TDF for the research for this article.

ecoXplorer Evelyn Kanter is an award-winning journalist with 25+ years of experience as a newspaper and magazine writer, radio & TV news producer & reporter, and author of guidebooks and smartphone apps – all focusing on travel, automotive, the environment and your rights as a consumer.