Preliminary investigations and restagings of Canal Street lore produced by Shanzhai Lyric while in residence in a disused storefront. Canal Street is lower Manhattan’s major thoroughfare running East to West and a mecca for bootleg luxury items. Generations of artists have been drawn to the surplus, detritus, collision and access to raw materials—features of the block that neoliberal urban development schemes are eager to phase out. Collaging together a bootleg transcription capturing rehearsal fragments of cult avante-garde artist Jack Smith’s nearby (unfinished) production of “Hamlet in the Rented World,” with soundscapes from neighboring emptied-out storefronts and conversations with local artists and vendors, “Smart and Lovely Shakespeare” celebrates the legacy of bootleg text to question assumptions around ownership, authorship and the politics of who gets in trouble for stolen property.