Shakespeare-in-the-Park

Shakespeare-in-the-Park is a term often used to refer to open air performances of Shakespeare's plays, and most notably in a park atmosphere.

See also Open-air Theatre

This kind of performance has a history that goes back to Shakespeare's own time and has been popular right up to the present day. Many court performances for instance would take place in public spaces at court.

In the past century or more it has become a feature in most countries across where the bard is honoured and studied.

Often this is linked to a Shakespearean Festival, such as the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, Oregon, founded in 1935.

One of the most famous of such creations, the first specifically bearing the title Shakespeare-in-the-Park, was created by Joseph Papp in 1962, in Central Park New York. Though it was by no means the first, it is today rather unique in that this famous and eagerly supported Public Theater series, performed in the Delacorte Theater, consists of free, large-scale productions of works by William Shakespeare (as well as the occasional musical or non-Shakespearean drama), featuring major (and expensive) film and stage performers. (Among them have been Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline, Al Pacino, Blythe Danner, Philip Seymour Hoffman, George C. Scott and Denzel Washington.)

For more on the international history, see "Shakespeare-in-the-Park", Wikipedia[1]. However, the reader is warned, is a partial and somewhat parochial overview, ostentatiously ignoring open air performances of the plays in Africa and Southern Africa.

Shakespeare in South African parks

Given the fine summer weather in the country, open air presentations are extremely popular, particularly as the form is implicit in pre-colonial theatre forms.

See Maynardville

See Mannville