Mobile Unit

MOBILE UNIT is a modern reimagining of Joseph Papp’s Mobile Theater. Mobile Unit reaches across economic and geographic barriers to the arts by meeting our communities where they are—staging free and accessible professional theater productions and programs in local neighborhood venues such as parks, correctional facilities, and community centers across all five boroughs of New York City.

Mobile Unit has served thousands of audiences with critically acclaimed productions, including a 2018 National tour of Lynn Nottage’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play SWEAT. In 2020, Mobile Unit received a Special Drama Desk Award for its program. Since 2021, Mobile Unit has experimented with expanding its scope to perform in outdoor venues across the city, at times gathering more than a thousand neighbors.

As part of The Public’s Civic Artistic Programs, the Mobile Unit maintains mutually beneficial relationships with our community partners, adapting Shakespeare in innovative ways to create narratives about, for and by our partnering communities, and providing various pathways of exposure to our theatrical process beyond the tour. The Civic Artistic Programs believe theater is its most powerful when it reflects and connects to the lives of our community.

Watch Our Work

Much Ado About Nothing | Summer 2025

Get To Know The Mobile Unit

Mobile Unit | In Corrections - Trailer

Mobile Unit National: SWEAT

WHERE WE GO

Every year, the Mobile Unit partners with dozens of organizations across the five boroughs to bring our tour to the people of New York City. From libraries to correctional facilities to parks, we bring free theater that meets people where they are.

(Please note: not all Mobile Unit tours visit every partner organization. Visit the show page for the most current list of tour stops.)