'Kentucky Shakespeare', commonly called Shakespeare in the Park, is a cultural event which features free Shakespeare performances every summer in Central Park in Old Louisville (in Louisville, Kentucky). Begun as the Carriage House Players in 1949, it is the oldest free professional and independently-operating Shakespeare festival in the United States. Between 12,000 and 15,000 visitors watch the festival's Shakespeare performances each summer. The festival has never charged admission because, as their website proclaims, "we stand by our firm belief that art is for everyone—rich, poor, educated, illiterate, healthy or disabled".
During the fall, winter, and spring, the festival tours schools, assists teachers in teaching Shakespeare, and sets up performances by and for inmates of Kentucky's prisons.
Globe Players is an advanced theatre company for high school students. Each summer, The Globe Players produce a full-length Shakespeare play and perform it on three evenings during Kentucky Shakespeare Festival's summer season on the C. Douglas Ramey Amphitheatre stage in Central Park.