Free Shakespeare in Griffith Park: A Local's Read on the 2026 Season
The dell at the top of the Old Zoo fills up slowly, the way a backyard fills up before a long dinner. People arrive with folded blankets under their arms, a paper bag from home, a bottle of something cold. By quarter to seven the grass is a patchwork of picnics, and at seven a company of actors walks out into the middle of it and starts a play.
If you live in Los Feliz, Atwater Village, Silver Lake, or the Franklin Hills, this is the closest thing the Eastside has to a neighborhood theater in July and August. It is also, quietly, the last summer it will feel this small. The permanent stage the city has spent years planning is under construction, and the makeshift dell setup that has defined the Griffith Park Free Shakespeare Festival for years is about to graduate into something bigger. The 2026 season is the intimate one. It is worth treating it that way.
Independent Shakespeare Co.'s 2026 festival features two productions: Coriolanus, directed by David Melville, running June 24 through July 26, and The Comedy of Errors, directed by Melissa Chalsma, running August 5 through September 6.
| Production | Dates | Director | The pitch |
|---|---|---|---|
| Coriolanus | June 24 – July 26 | David Melville | A political thriller the company has never staged before |
| The Comedy of Errors | August 5 – September 6 | Melissa Chalsma | A music-filled comedy of mistaken identity |
Performances run Wednesday through Sunday evenings at 7 pm, with no show on July 4, and all performances are free and open to the public with registration requested to manage crowds at the smaller location.
Two things to know about Coriolanus before you go. First, it is the political one, the Shakespeare play about a Roman general who cannot conceal his contempt for the people whose votes he needs. Second, this is the company's first crack at it in more than two decades of outdoor work. Director David Melville has cut the text down and added what he calls "Brechtian heavy metal" to keep the run time under two and a half hours. If you have a teenager who thinks Shakespeare is homework, this is the summer to change their mind.
The Comedy of Errors is the other side of the company's personality. Opening August 5, the production uses a swing-inspired soundtrack from a pandemic-era film version the company produced, aiming for a "chaotic, crazy, colorful world." Bring the kids to that one.
For years, ISC performed on a temporary stage on the Old Zoo's main lawn, a wide flat expanse that could absorb a big crowd without feeling crowded. That stage is gone for now. With construction of a permanent stage still in process on the main lawn, this summer's shows are again being held in the dell at the top of the Old Zoo, meaning available space is smaller and although performances are still free, reservations are required.
The dell is the natural amphitheater a few minutes' walk uphill from where the company used to perform. It accommodates 800 people per performance and is spacious enough for picnic blankets and low beach chairs. Eight hundred is not nothing, but it is a fraction of what the main lawn used to hold on a Friday. Both Coriolanus and Comedy of Errors are presented in the round, with open seating surrounding the stage on all sides.
The practical consequence for a local: the show is closer to you than it has been in years. You are inside the action rather than looking at it from a distance. The tradeoff is that you cannot show up at 6:55 with a bottle of rosé and expect to walk in.
General admission tickets for Coriolanus are free for all performances but require reservations. Reserved seating tickets with cushioned seats are also available for $60, with seating otherwise being around the stage on the grass. Blankets and beach chairs are recommended for attendees.
Free registration lives at IndieShakes.org. Book it the same day you decide to go. The company is not selling tickets so much as counting how many blankets to expect, but the dell caps at 800 and the popular nights fill up. If you have out-of-town guests staying with you in July, put the reservation on your calendar before you put the dinner reservation on it.
The $60 reserved cushioned seat is a real option if your back is done sitting on grass, or if you want to bring someone who thinks a picnic blanket is a fine idea in theory. For most locals within walking distance, the free grass seats are the right call, and arriving forty-five minutes early with a real dinner is how the regulars do it.
Here is a picture of the evening if you are within a fifteen-minute drive.
Come with a sweater; the summer nights are chill. That advice is decades old and still correct. The dell sits in a canyon and the temperature drops the moment the sun clears the ridge.
Several special nights are on the schedule, including Pride Night on June 27 and a "Swinging Soirée" dress-up event August 29. On themed evenings the audience often gets involved, whether through costume, a pre-show salon discussion, or a family workshop. If you have been to the festival a dozen times and want to shake up the routine, a themed night is the excuse.
A short list of nights to consider putting on the calendar now:
The Griffith Park Free Shakespeare Festival is not a small operation. Since 2010, when the company moved to Griffith Park, ISC has performed for over 500,000 Angelenos and provided more than $25 million of free theater to the city. The 2026 season is presented in partnership with the Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks, the Department of Cultural Affairs, and the Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture. Free is a real word here, not a marketing one. Donations go in a bucket at the edge of the dell, and the bucket is how the season keeps happening.
The reason this year feels different is the reason next year will feel different again. After a yearslong government and public review, and significant pandemic delays, work on a permanent stage started in 2025 and is due to finish next year, potentially in time for the 2027 Free Shakespeare season. The $4 million permanent stage will be located where the temporary stage used to sit.
Once the new stage opens, the festival will scale back up. The main lawn returns. The crowds return with it. If you have been meaning to bring your neighbor to a show, or to introduce your parents to what the company does, this is the summer to do it, while the dell is still the whole of it.
Griffith Park will be there in September, and the year after, and the year after that. The version of it we get for the next few weeks, though, only exists between June 24 and September 6.
If you love a neighborhood for the way its summers feel, we probably speak the same language. Backbeat Homes works with buyers and sellers across Los Angeles and the desert who care about the texture of a place, not just its floor plan. When you are ready to talk, we would be glad to listen.
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