In New York City

Mobile Unit presents free Shakespeare to prisons, homeless shelters, and community centers throughout New York’s boroughs. Over the years, the Mobile Unit has served thousands of audiences with critically acclaimed productions. In addition to the community tour, each Mobile Unit show “sits down” at The Public Theater’s Astor Place home to perform for Public audiences and community organizations from all over the city.

The Public Theater’s Mobile Unit breaks down economic and geographic barriers to the arts by meeting our communities where they are, staging free professional theater productions in local neighborhood venues such as libraries, homeless shelters, and community centers across all five New York City boroughs. This reimagining of The Public Theater’s original Mobile Theater is inspired by Ten Thousand Things Theater in Minneapolis, MN.

In Corrections

For the last year, Mobile Unit has worked to expand beyond touring productions and create deeper engagement opportunities with our partners. What we created is our first digital workshop series, Hip-Hop vs. Shakespeare, where participants are encouraged to write their own stories. The first four videos were filmed safely over the course of the last few months at The Public. 

• The 400-Year-Old Rapper
• I’ll Teach You How to Flow
• The Power of Opposites
• Rock the Party

Each video includes SUPMATS (supplementary materials), a workbook that engages participants with text, writing prompts, and literary exploration. Our hope is that this work will contribute to the healing of individuals and communities throughout this pandemic and beyond. 

Across the Country

The Mobile Unit National initiative represented our first expansion of this program beyond New York with an 18-stop tour of Lynn Nottage’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play SWEAT in Fall 2018, traveling through Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. Each tour stop also included tailored artistic engagement activities designed to amplify the voices of local communities and connect their stories to a larger national narrative.