A pound of Al Pacino's flesh

We'd been warned. Get there early. We left the house at 7:30am to get to Central Park so we could get free tickets to Shakespeare in the Park when the ticket office opened at 1pm.
This is what we saw when we arrived.
Not so bad.
Ok - 1 mile of people means we won't be getting tickets today. We asked the guys at the front of the line what time they got there (as, you know, 8am is pretty early for something that opens at 1pm right?). They arrived at 10. 10pm the night before that is, but as the park is closed until 6:30am they slept at the gates closest the venue and were accompanied into the park in an orderly line (as formed outside the park) by security guards when it opened.
Oh. Did I mention that the tickets are free, and that Al Pacino is in the play as Shylock. Did I also mention that it's pretty hot property for New Yorkers to get tickets to this? Hence the extreme lines.

Right. Next decision - do we want to sleep on the street in New York City? Answer: You only live once right? and we might as well die on the streets of New York, camping out to see Al Pacino in the (pound of ) flesh. Alright. I'll stop with the lame Merchant of Venice puns now. For the last few summers Shakespeare in the Park has been running at the Delacorte theatre in Central Park. Each year they have a head-lining actor in the play(s). Last year it was Christopher Walken and the year before it was Liev Schriber (Mr Naomi Watts).

So after getting up 'early' we spent the rest of the morning wandering through the park and making plans for 'the camp out'.

The Belvadere Castle - right next to the open air Delacorte theatre.
Later that night: Right. Let's do this! We 'borrowed' extra bedding from the linen closet in the basement of our apartment complex and packed up for the night.
About 2 metres to the left of this picture is Central Park West. A 3 lane road. So we literally were sleeping 'on the street'.
Getting settled in for the night.
Approx 5am.
Pack up time - time to move into the park.
There were only about 15-20 people who arrived in front of us the night before - so we were guaranteed tickets.
Once we sat down we were briefed about 'the rules' including that no-one could leave the line (or cut in the line) except to use the bathroom. They also gave us the number of a deli which did deliveries to the park - So we put orders in for coffee and bagels. Pronto. Then time for a bit more snoozing - this time in the park - at the front of the line - yeeha!
The line just grew and grew. We also saw a lot of suckers who arrived at 9am or after with such enthusiastic faces to have come 'early' to get tickets (I can say 'suckers' as that was unwittingly us the previous morning). We later understood that about 1km down the path there was a rock nicknamed 'the rock of hope'. Anyone arriving after 7am was likely to land on the wrong side of 'the rock of hope'.

It's been over 12 hours, and the countdown to the box office opening was on.
Homeward bound with tickets in hand.
Just a little excited about heading to the play. That or delirium had set in from lack of sleep.


Bootleg pictures of the stage and actors - the ushers were SO anti-photos and made you delete any if they caught you. Stealth I tell you. Pure stealth ;)
Old mate Al Pacino taking a bow.

All in all it was a fun experience and the actors were amazing. The only downfalls were a) the heat (but you can't do much about that) and b) even though we arrived in the first 20 people, the tickets are issued at random so we didn't end up with the best seats in the house.