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Lupita Nyong’o leads the starry cast Shakespeare in the Park's free production of Twelfth Night.
Catch Shakespeare in the Park, The Classical Theatre of Harlem and other alfresco performances
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New York's outdoor theatre season has arrived and the starry Shakespeare in the Park (Lupita Nyong'o! Peter Dinklage! Jesse Tyler Ferguson!) is just one of many incredible options. From The Classical Theatre of Harlem to the Battery Dance Festival, Lincoln Center's two-month Summer for the City festival to the Bard staged downtown and in the outer boroughs, we've got the scoop on the best outdoor shows to see in NYC, and most of our picks are FREE.
For even more outdoor performances, check out our Show Finder listings.
Although most of these productions do not require tickets, before heading to a show, check the official website to make sure it's not canceled due to inclement weather or illness.
Friday, May 23-Sunday, May 25. FREE - no tickets required.
In and around Theater for the New City, 155 First Avenue at 10th Street in the East Village
Since 1996, the venerable Theater for the New City has hosted this annual arts fest, which takes place inside the multistage venue but also spills out onto 10th Street. More than 200 organizations and artists are scheduled to take part in this anything-goes shindig, including downtown icons Austin Pendleton and Penny Arcade as well as Chinese Theatre Works, National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene, Le Squeezebox Cabaret, New Yiddish Rep and the Thunderbird American Indian Dancers.
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Thursday, May 29-Sunday, June 22. FREE - no tickets required but post-show donations are encouraged.
Behind The Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument on the North Patio at 89th Street and Riverside Drive on the Upper West Side. Cushions are provided.
Hudson Classical Theater Company kicks off its 22nd season with Julius Caesar about strangers who plot an assassination with idealistic intentions but deadly consequences. In an era of political turmoil, Shakespeare's tragic history play is a grim reminder that violence cannot save democracy.
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Thursday, May 29-Sunday, June 29. FREE - no tickets required but you can register to receive location details and weather policy.
Various locations in all five boroughs. See the complete schedule. Limited chair seating is available at all locations but is first come, first served.
The Public Theater's Mobile Unit, which tours one-act versions of Shakespeare plays to locations throughout NYC, mounts a song-and-Spanish-filled Much Ado About Nothing, a sparkling romantic comedy centering on two frenemies who fall in love. Adapted by director Rebecca Martínez and songwriter Julián Mesri, the same team behind last summer's bilingual smash The Comedy of Errors, this merry mounting stars Keren Lugo and Nathan M. Ramsey as Beatrice and Benedick.
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Thursday, May 29-Sunday, September 28. Events at The Amph are $25; performances at The Glade are FREE - no tickets required but entry is first come, first served.
Pier 55 in Hudson River Park at 13th Street in the Meatpacking District
Little Island presents another season of boundary-pushing performances. The shows in the 687-seat Amph run longer and require $25 tickets, but the one-offs in The Glade are 100% FREE with first-come, first-served seating. Amph highlights include The Counterfeit Opera (May 29-June 15), Kate Tarker's riff on The Beggar's Opera featuring Tony winner Lauren Patten and Broadway vets Damon Daunno and Ann Harada; Lee Breuer's The Gospel at Colonus (July 8-26), a radical reimagining of Oedipus; Suzan-Lori Parks' The Tune Up (July 30-August 3), a variety show featuring plays and music by the Pulitzer Prize winner; and Charles Ludlam's opera diva comedy Galas (September 6-28) starring Anthony Roth Costanzo. FREE offerings in The Glade include Tony nominee Whitney White's new song cycle The Case of the Stranger (June 26); Broadway's Aisha Jackson celebrating iconic women in jazz (July 27); and Sarah Gancher's bluegrass take on Tchaikovsky's opera Eugene Onegin (July 30-31) directed by Tony winner Rachel Chavkin. Click here to browse the entire calendar.
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Tuesday, June 3-Sunday, July 6. FREE - no tickets required though you can make a reservation if you want to be informed about weather-related cancelations. Post-show donations are encouraged.
Multiple locations: Central Park on the Upper West Side June 2-22; Carl Schurz Park on the Upper East Side June 24-29; Castle Clinton in The Battery (July 1-6). Bring your own chairs or blankets.
Since 2000, New York Classical Theatre has been presenting environmental stagings of vintage plays for free in Manhattan parks. Audiences literally follow the action as the performers move through the green spaces. This summer's offering is Shakespeare's rarely mounted problem comedy All's Well That Ends Well about a clever young woman who will do absolutely anything to land the man she adores.
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Thursday, June 5-Sunday, June 29. FREE - no tickets required but post-show donations are encouraged.
Carroll Park, enter at Carroll and Smith Streets in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn. Arrive at least a half hour early to snag one of the folding chairs.
This actor-led troupe has been presenting free shows in Brooklyn's Carroll Park since 2010. This summer's offering is Shakespeare's history epic Henry V about the newly minted King of England as he strives to be seen as a powerful leader. In a challenge to gender norms, actress McLean Peterson portrays the title role, getting to deliver that iconic St. Crispin's Day Speech!
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Wednesday, June 11-Saturday, August 9. Most outdoor events are FREE with first-come, first-served general admission; you can also make free fast track reservations online, which give you priority. Check individual listings for instructions. Indoor events are pay-what-you-wish.
Multiple locations, indoors and outside, on the Lincoln Center campus. Click here for a complete schedule of events.
For the fourth year in a row, Lincoln Center is presenting an exciting array of (mostly) no-cost concerts, performances, readings and interactive art installations throughout its Upper West Side campus, including Damrosch Park's 2,500-seat amphitheater and the giant disco-ball adorned outdoor dance floor at Josie Robertson Plaza. FREE outdoor highlights include Oh Sankofa!: A Juneteenth Celebration with Black Theatre United (June 19); The Tune Up featuring SLP & The Joyful Noise, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks' nine-piece band (June 19); a concert by the best costumed performance artist around, Machine Dazzle (June 21); David Dorfman Dance (June 25); the up-for-anything variety show Stamptown (June 28); Big Umbrella Day, a festival for neurodivergent audiences (July 5); Waitress: The Musical in American Sign Language courtesy of Deaf Broadway (July 23); Shanghai Day (July 26); and a Dance Workshop With Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (August 2). There are also exciting choose-what-you-pay performances starting at $5, including The Comet/Poppea by the American Modern Opera Company (June 18-21); the two-part theatrical epic Mahabharata (June 24-29); and the BAAND Together Dance Festival (July 29–August 2) featuring five iconic NYC troupes: Ballet Hispánico, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, American Ballet Theatre, New York City Ballet and Dance Theatre of Harlem. It's worth perusing the entire schedule to see what piques your interest.
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Thursday, June 12-Sunday, June 22. FREE but tickets required and distributed first come, first served starting 30 minutes before showtime.
Castle Clinton National Monument in The Battery. Click here for a map.
Since 2016, Shakespeare Downtown has been presenting classic plays (not all by the Bard!) inside the Castle Clinton National Monument, a circular, roofless, sandstone fort in The Battery that has served many purposes over the past two centuries. This year's show is Tiger Tale, a rarely produced late play by Tennessee Williams inspired by the Elia Kazan movie Baby Doll, which was actually an adaptation of two earlier Williams works. A Mississippi cotton gin owner with a young wife clashes with a rival who decides to settle the score by wooing the child bride. A three-hander full of Southern gothic heat and sexual tension.
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Saturday, June 21-Sunday, July 20. FREE but making advance reservations encouraged.
The lawn just inside 69th Street and Central Park West. Bring your own chairs or blankets.
For its 26th season, this scrappy theatre troupe presents Richard II, Shakespeare's infrequently seen tragedy about a fallible, erratic king brought down by those closest to him. Aimee Todoroff, the former managing director of the League of Independent Theater, helms the production.
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Thursday, June 26-Sunday, July 20. FREE - no tickets required but post-show donations are encouraged.
Behind The Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument on the North Patio at 89th Street and Riverside Drive on the Upper West Side. Cushions are provided.
Hudson Classical Theater Company continues its three-show season with a stage adaptation of Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen's romantic novel centering on the Dashwood sisters as they navigate society and suitors as single women on a small income. Prepare for dancing, dueling and I do-ing!
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Saturday, July 5-Sunday, July 27. FREE - no tickets required but post-show donations are encouraged.
Richard Rodgers Amphitheater in Marcus Garvey Park, enter at 122nd Street and Mount Morris Park West in Harlem. Seating is first come, first served, but the theatre has benches, not chairs, so everyone can squeeze in.
One of NYC's most celebrated Black companies, The Classical Theatre of Harlem has been mounting inventive takes on old favorites since 1999. This summer, they go a step further with a new play by Will Power that fills in a gap in mythology, the lost saga of Memnon, warrior king of the Ethiopians, who aided the Trojans during their infamous war with the Greeks. An act of cultural resurrection, Memnon kicks off at the end of Homer's Iliad and is written in iambic hexameter. Carl Cofield, who directed the play's world premiere last year at California's Getty Villa, helms this production, which stars Eric Berryman in the title role. Yes, it's a tragedy, but The Classical Theatre of Harlem keeps it family-friendly with dance, audience interaction and an 80-minute running time.
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Thursday, July 24-Sunday, August 17. FREE - no tickets required but post-show donations are encouraged.
Behind The Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument on the North Patio at 89th Street and Riverside Drive on the Upper West Side. Cushions are provided.
Hudson Classical Theater Company wraps up its season with The Lady from the Sea, Ibsen's drama about a lighthouse keeper's daughter torn between her landlocked marriage and the sailor she once loved. The Hudson River provides the perfect backdrop for this classic!
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Tuesday, August 5-Saturday, August 23. FREE - no tickets required but post-show donations are encouraged.
Various parks in Queens, Jersey City and Southampton. The complete schedule will be posted on the company's website in June. Bring your own blankets or chairs.
Since 2007, the Hip to Hip Theatre Company has been touring professional outdoor mountings of Shakespeare plays to parks in Queens and beyond. With energetic actors, 90-minute running times and pre-show Kids & the Classics interactive workshops, Hip to Hip's no-cost productions are a great way to introduce children to the poetry of the Bard. This summer the troupe presents The Tempest and Hamlet in rep. The latter is a literal bloody tragedy about the grieving Prince of Denmark so The Tempest is a better bet for families, an enthralling tale of revenge, romance and forgiveness.
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Thursday, August 7-Sunday, September 14. FREE but tickets are required.
Delacorte Theater in Central Park, enter at 81st Street and Central Park West, or 79th Street and Fifth Avenue.
The renovation of Central Park's Delacorte Theater is almost complete (yay for new bathrooms!). The Public Theater's inaugural Shakespeare in the Park production in the overhauled venue is Twelfth Night, the Bard's sparkling comedy about the romantic complications that ensue after fraternal twins are separated during a shipwreck. Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o and her real-life brother Junior Nyong'o are siblings Viola and Sebastian; Khris Davis and Sandra Oh are their respective love interests, Orsino and Olivia; Peter Dinklage is the mercilessly mocked Malvolio; and Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Daphne Rubin-Vega are also in this cast of cutups.
How to get tickets: There are multiple ways to try to snag FREE tickets: in person at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park starting at noon every performance day (with three separate lines for the general public, seniors and individuals with disabilities); the in-person lottery at The Public Theater at noon every performance day; various in-person distribution sites in the outer boroughs for specific performances; a digital lottery via TodayTix; and an in-person standby line before each performance. Details are on The Public's website. A Public Theater Patron ID is required to receive FREE tickets, so be sure to register for one in advance.
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Saturday, August 9 and Tuesday, August 12-Saturday, August 16. FREE - no tickets required
Multiple locations: Robert Wagner Park, 20 Battery Place in Battery Park City on August 9; Rockefeller Park, enter at Murray Street and River Terrace in Battery Park City August 12-16. Bring your own blankets or chairs.
The programming is eclectic and plentiful at this annual favorite presented by Battery Dance. Launched in 1982, this festival offers domestic dance-makers a chance to share the bill with troupes from around the world. The schedule for the 44th annual edition has not yet been finalized. But we do know that for six nights in August, you'll be able to catch dazzling dancers against the dramatic backdrop of New York Harbor, including Buglisi Dance Theatre, Marie Ponce, Limón Dance Company, Taiwan's Bulareyaung Dance Company, Faizah Grootens from the Netherlands, Platforma 13 from Romania, Spain's UNARTE and Wan Dance from Indonesia. The complete lineup will be available on Battery Dance's website in late July.
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Wednesday, August 29-Tuesday, September 2. FREE but tickets are required.
Cathedral of St. John the Divine, 1047 Amsterdam Avenue at 112th Street on the Upper West Side
We're cheating with this one since it takes place indoors at the glorious Cathedral of St. John the Divine, but it is FREE. The Public Theater's invaluable Public Works program, which turns Shakespeare shows into participatory community pageants, presents a new choral adaptation of Pericles by playwright-songwriter Troy Anthony that uses Gospel music and the uplifting energy of the Black church to tell this rollicking adventure about faith. Carl Cofield from The Classical Theatre of Harlem directs.
How to get tickets: Details about ticket distribution have not yet been finalized. In the past, Public Works shows followed the Shakespeare in the Park model. We will update this article once we have the info.
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Note: We didn't include Broadway in Bryant Park because the schedule hasn't been released yet. Once it's finalized, you'll find it here.
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TDF MEMBERS: Go here to browse our latest discounts for dance, theatre and concerts.
Raven Snook is the Editor of TDF Stages. Follow her on Facebook at @Raven.Snook. Follow TDF on Facebook at @TDFNYC.
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