For 26 years, Shakespeare by the Sea has been much-anticipated summer fare for San Pedro.
The nonprofit theater company annually launched and ended its summer run of shows at the bandshell in San Pedro’s Point Fermin Park, on the town’s southern bluffs overlooking the ocean.
But this year’s traditional opening and closing at Point Fermin Park has been scrapped. Instead, Shakespeare by the Sea officials are looking to move the final show elsewhere in San Pedro — and open the season in neighboring Long Beach.
The reason for the move, Shakespeare by the Seas officials say, is primarily too much crime.
The breaking point came a year ago.
After an evening rehearsal last summer, a cast member was assaulted at gunpoint by four assailants in an attempted carjacking in the parking lot, said Stephanie Coltin, co-artistic director for Shakespeare by the Sea.
The Los Angeles Police Department would not provide details on the incident without a formal public records request. But the car, Cotlin said, was not stolen and while the cast member’s injuries were minor, they still required a trip to the hospital.
But that was only the final incident, Coltin said.
Leaving the bluff-top park that had been so associated with Shakespeare by the Sea since its opening in 1998, in fact, was something that came only after a few years of ongoing issues, Coltin said.
On another occasion, for example, Cotlin watched as “a guy came up in a car inside the park, grabbed one of our props and broke it over his knee,” she said. That person then hit someone in the face, she added.
“It was not an easy decision,” Coltin said. “It’s nobody’s fault.”
Last summer’s incident, though, jarred more than a few nerves among those who perform there after dark every summer.
“There has been increasing crime in the park for several years,” Coltin said. “This was the culmination. This is an outdoor, public venue so I know it can happen anywhere.”
The area’s City…
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