We opened our theatrical run this past Thursday at Under St. Mark's Place. It felt great that, after months of planning and rehearsal, we were finally going to let this thing out into the wild.

Opening night had a great crowd. Of course we had our share of friends and family, but just as exciting was the healthy dose of people who showed up at the recommendation of our friends, even though they did not know us directly.

On Friday evening, a couple who had originally seen us perform in Central Park came to see the show. Then, on Saturday, a small family came after seeing our listing in Time Out New York, as well as a decent amount of walk-ins.

Perhaps it shouldn't come as a shock that people heard about the show and came to see it (after all, isn't that the idea?). But what does resonate is the idea that not a few relative strangers decided to trust us with their time and money, and for that trust we are extremely grateful. We hope you had a great evening with us at the theater, and we hope to provide six more of the same.

- Rob

The cast had some bumps and scrapes on the way to getting to where they wanted to go, but in the end, what didn't kill them...just caused a lot of pain.

No Jacket Required presents "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare Abridged!" for the final time in Central Park. In this video we explore the roots of Juliet in the good, old, Elizabethan fashion. Make sure to catch our performances at UNDER St. Mark's before the end of August!

We recently received an email from a couple of Brits who saw one of our performances in Central Park while on "holiday" in the U.S.  We can only assume that their compliments of our work with Willy are accurate since they are English, and being so, know more about Shakespeare than us.  Feel free to check out some excerpts below!

Hi,

We happened upon one of your 'performances in the park' recently, purely by chance, on our last day in the US (Saturday 26th July to be precise...I have to write it like that cause you guys write the date all funny). Having seen the tail end of the first performance and enjoyed it tremendously we just had to stay to see the whole of the 2nd show (plus it was a beautiful day and we had nothing better to do).

Well we just wanted to say thank you for ending our holiday on a high. That Saturday was a sad one in many respects after three weeks spent in Florida, Washington, Atlantic City and finally New York, we were finally heading back to England. Our flight wasn't until late in the day and we were just killing time in Central Park for a couple of hours when we stopped on the path to see what on earth 3 blokes in tights were doing shouting at a small group of people and a large group of rocks (is that a rock group?).

Suffering from our quaint and charming English reserve, it took us some considerable time to sidle up to the edge of the area and settle in for the show, but what a show!! It was genuinely funny, quirky, energetic, and full of men in tights...what more could you ask for?

The signed poster survived the journey home intact, and it will be framed and hung on our wall some day soon. It's a talking point, and who knows, one day it may be worth pennies to a collector. And should any one, or all, of you become famous the world over and ridiculously rich, we shall shamelessly point to our poster and remind you how our $5 helped in some small way to send you on your journey to the dizzy heights of stardom (signed memorabilia, free tickets and wads of cash gratefully received).

So, thanks once again for making two jaded holidaymakers laugh out loud. It was a strangely fitting end to an incredible journey.

Take care, good luck, and keep up the good work.

Mike and Penny

Ethan and Tim try to learn fight choreography for Romeo and Juliet (without hurting themselves), only to find out that what they really want to do is learn how to stop time and rotate the perspective 360 degrees like "The Matrix".

Final park performances this week: Fri 8/8 at 6:30PM, and Sat 8/9 at 1:30PM. Click here for details!

We at No Jacket Required are thrilled to say that we've had over 1,300 hits for the site from 6 continents, 28 countries, and 36 U.S. states!  Needless to say, we are really excited and very grateful to everyone who is spreading the word!

...Except for those of you in Antarctica.  Seriously, what's the deal with you guys?  Just because you're busy fixing the global climate problem doesn't mean you can't take a few minutes to enjoy some of our videos.

We feel that a show with such a lofty goal as performing the entirety of William Shakespeare's works should have an equally lofty audience goal of having the entire world participate.  To this end, No Jacket Required would like our fans to help spread the word of the Bard to every friend they have abroad to check out the site so we can have complete, global participation (with the exception of the countries we have been banned from due to Darren and Tim's Spring break trip). 

We want as many people to comment and send us feedback as possible!  We will send the first person who can get Antarctica to visit the site a free,  signed production poster! You will have to prove you were able to get them to visit the site by having them mail you a cherry snow-cone made with genuine Antarctic snow and the tears of baby sea lions, which you will then mail to us.**

Antarctica,
Get your act together and stop worrying about the receding ice shelf and whether or not Emperor Penguins will have a place to mate.  They have a documentary, a march, and Morgan Freeman advocating for them - we don't have any of those.  I don't know what it is going to take to get you in the game, but we'll send you a signed production poster or the cast member of your choice (in exchange for a baby penguin) if you visit the site and send us an email.

-NJR Cast and Crew

**See if you can get a glacier too, since that would be really cool to show off to all the other theaters.  The cast of "The Lion King" will be soooo jealous.

Transcript of 10:16AM GTalk Conversation, in reference to the Shakespeare bust affectionately entitled Willy:

Rob: I have some possibly bad news, though not totally irreparable... I may have lost our Willy on the way home last night

Ethan: ok, let's order another stat

Rob: ... is that like... when your dog dies... and then you buy another dog that looks just like it?

No Jacket Required recently acquired footage from the earliest known performance of Shakespeare's "Macbeth", and they have restored it to it's original quality for "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare Abridged" fans.

We started today (technically yesterday cause lightening struck my house last night) by talking about how the park went and brainstorming ideas to bring in more crowds.  Ideas included a boom box with our pre-show music. 

I am also proud to say that we are fully blocked up until the last two pages!
And give Ethan points for pushing through his sickness.  He did great but was clearly tired.

We decided that the boys are going to wear pants to work on Friday and then put tights on underneath when they leave for the park.  That way they can just slip into their costume without breaking any decency laws.

-Lisa (Stage Manager)