Phoenix Festival Playbill 2025 (1) - Flipbook - Page 39
The Drilling Company Theatre
Since 1999 (now in our 26th season of programming!), The Drilling
Company has been bringing together diverse audiences, developing plays
and playwrights of social conscience and offering FREE Shakespeare to
thousands of New Yorkers from every walk of life. Their Shakespeare in
the Parking Lot has become a grassroots institution on the Lower East Side,
known throughout the world. Lakeplay, The Norwegians, Gabriel: A Polemic,
Home of The Great Pecan, Reservoir, Over the Line, and Mutant Sex Party,
Herself are a few of the many TDC world premieres. Having inaugurated the
Bryant Park Shakespeare program with HAMLET in 2014, TDC has
presented ten full productions in Bryant Park, bringing a new summer
tradition to New York City. Go to www.drillingcompany.org to learn more
and “drop a ducat in the bucket!"
From the Director, Hamilton Clancy
Shakespeare in a parking lot is a crazy idea….maybe. But we like to think
of ourselves as Shakespeare in THE Parking Lot, in THE greatest city in
the world, in THE most inclusive, diverse neighborhood in the world, in the
greatest melting pot in the history of civilization. SitPL was started 30 years
ago and we are still chugging. After about 10 years we included Bryant Park
Shakespeare for a decade along the way. This is the 昀椀fth time A Midsummer
Night's Dream has appeared in the Parking Lot, I think, because it is the most
Lower East Side of all of Shakespeare’s plays: adventurous, extreme, at times
we hope hilarious, bursting with originality and inclusive of all explorers. It
begs us to forgive: lovers, clowns, spirits, all. Seemed like the right call for
our 30th anniversary.
Special Thanks
Additional thanks and gratitude: Jackie Christy and Access Theatre, while
they closed in January they were a location where we rehearsed for
almost 7 years and they are missed. Karen Lichtblau who reaches out
every summer to spread the word in the community, Tom Clancy and
Cathleen Clancy, Nora Kelsall, Sayada & Alan Rothschild, Ken and Debbie
Baron, and all of the Drilling Company players who make our community a
reality. And always, our eternal thanks to the community of the Lower East
Side, home of the original Shakespeare in the Parking Lot for 30 years.
