It's that time of year again when theatregoers fight for seats in a Lower East Side parking lot. "Shakespeare in the Park(ing Lot)," the popular series presented by the Off-Off-Broadway troupe Expanded Arts, gets underway July 7 with Richard III. As in previous years, the show will take place in a municipal parking lot at Broome and Ludlow Streets. Performances run through July 31.

Director David Levine, taking his production's setting to heart, has staged the Bard's classic tale of royal treachery in and around a gutted 1984 baby blue Ford Malibu. According to the director, "the old car represents a type of history, much like the costumes, with range from Elizabethan to the 1930's. The car becomes both places and people -- at one point it even becomes Richard himself."

For information on Richard III, call (212) 253-1813. Tickets are free.

The second production in the 1999 Parking Lot program will be Measure for Measure, Aug. 14-28.

--By Robert Simonson