New York’s hottest summer ticket is back
City residents converged on Central Park before sunrise on Aug. 23 in hopes of scoring tickets to Shakespeare in the Park, a longtime summer tradition that returned last month after a two–year pause for renovations.
Muran, a then-incoming freshman at Brown University, set up a foldable chair on a strip of grass just southwest of the Great Lawn in Manhattan’s Central Park at 11 p.m. on Aug. 22. Though the park was about to close, she was settling in for the night.
A few hours later, Isabel, who moved to New York from Texas last year, was scrolling through social media in her Midtown Manhattan apartment. She spotted a TikTok about the return of Shakespeare in the Park, a city tradition dating back more than 60 years, after a two-year hiatus. Isabel packed a book, grabbed a pillow and headed for the subway, arriving at the park at 4:30 a.m.
About an hour later, a family of three — Manhattan residents Paulette and George and their daughter, Angie, who lives in Philadelphia — set up camp roughly 50 people behind Isabel.
Since 1962, the Delacorte Theater of Central Park has been home to free summer performances of William Shakespeare’s plays, dubbed Shakespeare in the Park. After a two-year hiatus prompted by renovations, the theater reopened to the public Aug. 7 with a star-studded production of “Twelfth Night,” featuring Lupita Nyong’o DRA ’12, Peter Dinklage, Sandra Oh and Jesse Tyler Ferguson. The tickets are highly coveted; snagging one requires strategy and patience.
At 11 a.m., 12 hours after Muran started the line, it had grown to hundreds of people, snaking northward from a pathway in front of the theater, down a hill and past a large rock. It was a sunny day, the temperature in the low 80s. At noon, tellers would start releasing tickets. Some people lay out on blankets reading, while others lounged in beach chairs. One man strummed a guitar and another played a saxophone as the crowd waited.
Isabel sat cross-legged next to a tree with an iced coffee that her friend, Heidi, had brought to her in the morning. They chatted with their neighbors in line and shared bagels that someone had bought for the group.
Isabel told the News she came “for the actors.” She is a fan of Oh, Dinklage and Ferguson because of their roles in “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Game of Thrones” and “Modern Family,” respectively.
“All three of them were my favorite,” she said of the actors.
Angie and her family attended Shakespeare in the Park performances each summer before the two-year hiatus. This year, the line stretched further than they had ever remembered, they said, and hopeful attendees arrived earlier.
When they showed up in front of the theater, they discovered they were already too late. Theater staff warned them they likely wouldn’t get tickets. Still, the family stayed in line.
When asked about their decision to wait, George shrugged and said they enjoyed the experience and the atmosphere.
“What I really like about this is that it’s very much a New York thing,” he said. “People have fun.”
He didn’t care whether he got a ticket, he added. He was there for the memories.
Shortly after noon, the line finally began to move. A worker in a lime green Public Theater T-shirt ushered 20 people across the walkway toward the ticket booth. When Muran, her aunt and their friend Sean received their tickets, the workers in the box office and others still waiting in line erupted into cheers and applause. Muran stopped to snap a photo of her ticket.
More groups surged forward. Some bounded up to the booth. Winners hollered congratulations to each other. The line progressed forward to the booth in fits and starts.
Just after 1 p.m., the worker who’d been stationed at the front of the line wove through the line and announced, “We’re sold out for tonight’s Twelfth Night performance.” People began packing up and drifting away.
A trio of women stood off to the side, hugging and laughing.
“You’re going to make me cry,” Katie, a Manhattan resident who had just learned she wasn’t going to get a ticket, told her two friends.
She had gotten in line at 5 a.m. and described waiting for the tickets as her favorite thing to do every summer in New York.
Katie’s two friends had made it to the park 30 minutes before her and scored some of the last tickets. They got one for her.
The friends headed home to rest. They were going to watch Shakespeare under the stars that night.
Shakespeare in the Park’s production of “Twelfth Night” concluded on Sept. 14.
This article was written for the Yale Daily News’ 2025 Summer Journalism Program for high school students.