Shakespeare in the Parking Lot has a new parking lot on the Lower East Side

[Photo from 2012 by Lee Wexler/Images for Innovation]

Via the EVG inbox this morning...

The Drilling Company's Shakespeare in the Parking Lot has found a new home in the Parking Lot behind The Clemente Soto Velez Cultural and Educational Center, 114 Norfolk St. located between Delancey and Rivington Streets, just three blocks from the parking lot where the cultural attraction started in 1995.

In 2014, after losing its space in the Municipal Parking lot at Ludlow and Broome Streets, the company engaged in a nine-month search for a new location to continue the 20-year tradition, presenting free Shakespeare for a generation on the Lower East Side. The annual two-play festival will now have a new home for its 21st season and into the future.

This year's productions will be "As You Like It," directed by Hamilton Clancy, July 9 to 26 and "Macbeth," director TBA, July 30 to August 15.

Shakespeare in the Parking Lot became a treasured urban tradition in two decades of productions in the neighborhood known as the Seward Park Urban Renewal Area, which is now giving way to Essex Crossing, a giant mixed-used development.