The BBC reported here what began as a pitch for a new book on parking and ended as a summary of what parking is like around the world. A nice puff piece. Check it out. What caught my eye was a sidebar:
My Kingdom for a Parking Space
Parking lots can occasionally be places of culture. In New York the Shakespeare in the Lot project puts on the bard’s plays for free in Manhattan’s Lower East Side.
The project’s artistic director, Hamilton Delancey, who has been involved for 11 years, said: “We set out about 50 plastic seats and people bring their own chairs and blankets and we usually get up to 250 for a performance.
Mr Delancey, who is putting on The Merry Wives Of Windsor and Coriolanus this summer, said: “Sometimes it can quite get quite surreal. You could be staging Othello and a driver will come back to pick up their car and there’s an audience surrounding it.
“But the actors will stop, step aside, everybody will move their chairs, the cars backs out, then the audience sits back down, the actor – still in character – carries on without missing a beat.”
This is terrific — People crowd around, watch the play, and if someone wants their car, they just stop the play, move out of the way, the car is retrieved, then they press on. I love it.
Yet another use for the poor browbeaten parking garage. Break a leg.
JVH
