LOS ANGELES (October 18, 2013) – At Friday’s Los Angeles City Council meeting, Tom LaBonge of Council District 4 presented Independent Shakespeare Co. with a certificate to salute the company’s success in bringing arts and culture to the City with the annual Griffith Park Free Shakespeare Festival.
Since 2005, Independent Shakespeare Co. (ISC) has presented free Shakespeare in the park, first at Barnsdall Park and, since 2010, at the Old Zoo in Griffith Park. The Griffith Park Free Shakespeare Festival has grown from serving less than 1,000 audience members in 2004 to over 43,000 in 2013. This year, the festival provided Angelenos with almost $1.3 million of free theater (calculated at a conservative ticket value of $30 per person).
“We love making theater in Los Angeles and it is absolutely thrilling to be recognized by the City Council,” says Melissa Chalsma, Artistic Director.
The Griffith Park Free Shakespeare Festival serves a diverse audience: 41% of the 2013 surveyed audience earn less than $25,000 per year and 42% are non-Caucasian. 25% of the audience was under the age of 18, indicative of the family friendly nature of this annual classical theater event.
Councilmember Tom LaBonge presented the certificate to Melissa Chalsma, Artistic Director; David Melville, Managing Director; John Bauman, Board Chairman along with ISC staff and board directors.
Independent Shakespeare Co. (ISC) was founded in 1998. We have been producing accessible, imaginative performances of classical plays since that time. Our first performances were located on the Lower East Side of New York. The stripped down production style of our early productions enabled us to travel easily and we quickly found ourselves touring Europe, ending with an invitation to perform our production Macbeth for four weeks at The King’s Head Theatre in London. In 2001 we relocated to Los Angeles and -- with the support of the Department of Recreation and Parks and the Department of Cultural Affairs -- founded Free Shakespeare in Barnsdall Park, in 2004. Because of audience demand, in 2010 we moved to the significantly larger venue at the Old Zoo and re-christened the summer season the Griffith Park Free Shakespeare Festival. We have produced 24 fully staged productions over ten summer seasons. The growth in attendance is extraordinary: our first season played to fewer than 1,000 people; by 2013 over 43,000 people came to Griffith Park for 40 nights of free Shakespeare productions. For more information call 818-710-6306 or visit www.iscla.org
