Friday, June 3rd, 2011

It’s getting to be that time of year — The Public Theater is just about ready to start the 57th season of Shakespeare In The Park at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park. The 2011 season (June 6 – July 30) will include Measure For Measure (directed by David Esbjornson) and All’s Well That Ends Well (directed by Daniel Sullivan).

All perfomances begin at 8 pm and take place at the Delacorte Theater, which is just south of the Great Lawn (roughly in line with 80th Street). The full performance calender can be found here.

So, how do you get tickets? You can (and should) read the full details here, but this is the summary:

Ticket distribution for Shakespeare in the Park begins at 1 pm on the day of the performance at The Delacorte Theater in Central Park. The closest entrances to the Delacorte Theater are at 81st Street and Central Park West or 79th Street and Fifth Avenue. There is a limit of 2 tickets per person and the entire party must arrive together. There are separate ticket lines to accommodate people with disabilities and senior citizens aged 65 or older (proof of age or disability is required).

It sounds simple, until you read the next two paragraphs:

Please be advised Central Park is closed from the hours of 1:00 – 6:00 am. NYPD will patrol the Delacorte area and issue summons to anyone in the Park before its official open time.

If you choose to line up before 6:00 am, please do so along the east side of Central Park West starting at 81st Street. A Public Theater line monitor will escort the line in at 6:00 am. Please remember: The Public Theater neither suggests nor condones lining up before the park opens at 6:00 am.

So yeah… I guess you can’t saunter up at 12:55 pm and expect to be near the front of the line. I don’t have any personal experience with getting tickets for Shakespeare In The Park, so I’m not sure exactly how crazy it gets. But considering a “a Public Theater line monitor will escort the line in at 6:00 am,” it sounds pretty nuts.

There’s supposed to be some sort of virtual ticketing as well, but that seems to be “under construction” (UPDATE 6/4: Virtual Ticketing page now live). Also, on specific dates a limited number of vouchers for that night’s performance will be distributed at locations throughout New York’s five boroughs

If anyone is an experienced SITP ticket-getter, please e-mail me at alerts [at] myupperwest.com with your thoughts and suggestions on the process so I can share them on the site. If you feel like taking a stab at a full-blown “guest post” on the process, even better!

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Tags: Central Park, Delacorte Theater, Free, New York City, NYC, Public Theater, Shakespeare in the Park, Upper West Side, UWS