A Comedy of Shakespeare

On my way to a group reading of King Lear, my errands took me past this building:

Sign on door: Trinity Grace Church
Sign on windows: Shaftway 

The event itself was held in Tupelo Meadow in Central Park.  I came in from the east side, around 72nd Street, and went to the official Central Park Kiosk, manned by an official Central Park Volunteer wearing an official Central Park t-shirt and an official Central Park volunteer hat.  He looked super-qualified.  But he had never heard of Tupelo Meadow, and it was not on the official.  When I finally convinced him that that was, indeed, the location I'd been given, he finally looked it up in the official Central Park Guidebook.  To his surprise, it was in the index!  And it had its own entry!  So he showed me where it was, as proud as if he'd invented the meadow himself.  

It turns out that it is a little green area within the Ramble.  

The Ramble 

So, once I got to Tupelo Meadow, I quickly eliminated the folks who were brandishing wooden swords at the far side (that's not King Lear!!!), and approached three folks who were holding paperbacks and taking turns reading out loud to each other.  Yup, those were my people all right!  We got to try a variety of roles, changing it up from scene to scene, and even re-doing some scenes multiple times unitl everyone had had a shot.

As I left the park, when I was just about a block away from the subway, I picked up a message - friends were going to wait on line for Comedy of Errors.  Perfect timing!  I picked up snacks and a camp chair at a local store and turned right back around to the park!  We enjoyed a picnic while we waited, and we got tickets together (a real coup).  It was a lively production, really liked the dancing.  The 50's mobster thing was an interesting touch.  The Brooklyn tough-guy accents got a little thick at times, but at least they had subtitles!!!