When developing Free Shakespeare in the Park, it was important to Joe Papp that people felt represented in the theater. “Joe wanted to fill the stage with the same kind of people he was gonna fill the audience with. All the people of the city,” said James Earl Jones, a frequent collaborator of Papp’s.
Written Features
Video Features
Clip | When Joe Papp asked Meryl Streep to take over the theater
Clip | How Joe Papp turned a dilapidated building into The Public Theater
Clip | The origins of Shakespeare in the Park
Clip | Representation in theater was important to Joe Papp
Clip | Why Joe Papp thinks the theater should be free for all of us
TRANSCRIPT
- I got a call one day and this voice came on and said, 'Colleen Dewhurst?'
I said, 'Yes.'
He said, 'My name's Joe Papp.'
Said, 'I'm going to start a company, ''Shakespeare For The People', something that is free.'
I mean, did I care?
I just wanted to know, did this man have a job for me or what. (Colleen laughing) - Saturday was the last day for actors to audition for the New York Shakespeare Festival for its inaugural season.
I told my friends, 'Tomorrow, I'm gonna become an actor.'
And they said, 'What?
'You're Black.
'You don't know how tough it's going to be.
'They'll have you bearing torches.'
By 6 p.m. the next day, Joseph Papp was saying to me, 'You're new to me.
'How long have you been an actor?'
And I said, '12 hours, but I have no intention 'of bearing any torches,' and he broke up laughing.
He says, 'No, you'll have words.'
- Joe wanted to fill the stage with the same kind of people he was gonna fill the audience with.
All the people of the city.
- He thought, 'If I can be in this, 'if I'm King Lear, then everybody else can be.'
(Old World Italian vibe music) - The first show that opened here with no advertising, nothing, just opened the doors and the place was packed.
- You couldn't stop the people from coming in.
- Every color, every possible group was there.
- Old people, young people, Jewish people, Hispanic people, black people, hundreds of people.
- These people were dealing with Shakespeare for the first time, probably theater for the first time.
- They laughed, they roared.
The people would yell.
They'd go, 'Look out!
'Here she comes, look out!'
- Don't do it Romeo, she ain't dead, Romeo.
Don't do it, oh Christ.
- It was all very much alive, almost like an Elizabethan audience.
- 'The Taming of the Shrew' was on at the amphitheater, opening night.
And there was a thunderstorm.
(thunder rolling) (music continues) The rain ends the first act and Gelb writes this glowing review of one act.
- It started to rain at 9:45 last night.
Petruchio had just finished giving Kate a sound trouncing.
The audience was leaning raptly forward.
It started raining and the audience did not leave.
If ever an audience was with a play, this one was.
Exclamations of dismay, disappointed shouts resounded in a blending of dialects that could be heard only on the Lower East Side.
- He wrote this wonderful piece and it became a kind of a turning point for me.
- We were all very young with no notion that we were forming an institution.
And we watched it growing, we watched it growing.
(moroccan drum music)
