Meryl Streep was touched, but perplexed when Joe Papp asked her to take over The Public Theater after his passing. “What he wanted was bigger than what could be, which was sort of always what was true with him,” said Streep.
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
- It was this sort of a most amazing afternoon.
He asked me in.
And within 20 seconds he told me that he's probably gonna die.
And then, would I take over the theater?
Those two pieces of information up next to each other.
So I never really recovered from the first one.
And then he said, 'And I need somebody to 'run the theater.'
And I thought it was sort of... I got back in my car and drove all the way home and thought two things.
One, how much he loved me and how much he didn't know me.
Because, to think that I could go to a million cocktail parties a week and ask rich people for money, and sort of, you know, run a theater.
And I just was about to have my fourth child or third or whatever it was, I can't remember.
But I thought those two things that he really, what he wanted was bigger than what could be.
Which was sort of always what was true with him.
(upbeat drumming)
