- 4 months ago
After a two-year closure and a comprehensive $85 million renovation, the Delacorte Theater in Central Park has officially reopened for Free Shakespeare in the Park. This iconic program, managed by The Public Theater and founded by visionary Joe Papp, rests on the powerful belief that culture belongs to everyone. The Delacorte has served as a launchpad for American theater legends, from Meryl Streep to James Earl Jones and Anne Hathaway. The latest renovation is a testament to this legacy, transforming the space into an even more inclusive and welcoming experience.
The project has completely reshaped the historic open-air venue, transforming a 60-year-old structure with a "very temporary feel" into a permanent theater with modern infrastructure. The new exterior nestled into the park features a dynamic facade made from reclaimed redwood sourced from old New York City water towers. Accessibility was also a key focus, resulting in 34 accessible seats—more than double the previous number—a new cross-aisle, and ADA-compliant access points for audience, actors, and members of the creative team alike.
With expanded ticket distributions now reaching all five boroughs—and a daily digital lottery on the TodayTix app—The Public Theater is ensuring its iconic open-air venue is more accessible than ever, sending a clear message to the entire city: the culture belongs to everyone. With this renewed mission, the new season kicks off on August 7th with a star-studded production of "Twelfth Night" directed by Saheem Ali. The cast includes Lupita Nyong'o, Sandra Oh, Daphne Rubin-Vega, Peter Dinklage, and Jesse Tyler Ferguson, marking a glorious return for a beloved New York City institution.
0:00 The Meaning of Free Shakespeare in the Park
1:02 Joe Papp's Vision & The Delacorte's History
1:33 Shakespeare for Everyone: A Universal Story
3:05 Delacorte's Famous Alumni
3:37 The Magic of a Central Park Performance
4:41 The Robert Moses Controversy & The Need For Renovation
7:06 The Renovation's Design: Funding & Key Improvements
9:38 The Symbolism of the Reclaimed Redwood Facade
11:13 Reopening & Making Tickets Accessible
12:58 The Star-Studded Cast of "Twelfth Night"
Subscribe to Forbes Life: https://www.youtube.com/c/ForbesLife?sub_confirmation=1
Stay Connected
Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbesvideo
Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbesvideo
More From Forbes: http://forbes.com
Forbes covers the intersection of entrepreneurship, wealth, technology, business and lifestyle with a focus on people and success.
The project has completely reshaped the historic open-air venue, transforming a 60-year-old structure with a "very temporary feel" into a permanent theater with modern infrastructure. The new exterior nestled into the park features a dynamic facade made from reclaimed redwood sourced from old New York City water towers. Accessibility was also a key focus, resulting in 34 accessible seats—more than double the previous number—a new cross-aisle, and ADA-compliant access points for audience, actors, and members of the creative team alike.
With expanded ticket distributions now reaching all five boroughs—and a daily digital lottery on the TodayTix app—The Public Theater is ensuring its iconic open-air venue is more accessible than ever, sending a clear message to the entire city: the culture belongs to everyone. With this renewed mission, the new season kicks off on August 7th with a star-studded production of "Twelfth Night" directed by Saheem Ali. The cast includes Lupita Nyong'o, Sandra Oh, Daphne Rubin-Vega, Peter Dinklage, and Jesse Tyler Ferguson, marking a glorious return for a beloved New York City institution.
0:00 The Meaning of Free Shakespeare in the Park
1:02 Joe Papp's Vision & The Delacorte's History
1:33 Shakespeare for Everyone: A Universal Story
3:05 Delacorte's Famous Alumni
3:37 The Magic of a Central Park Performance
4:41 The Robert Moses Controversy & The Need For Renovation
7:06 The Renovation's Design: Funding & Key Improvements
9:38 The Symbolism of the Reclaimed Redwood Facade
11:13 Reopening & Making Tickets Accessible
12:58 The Star-Studded Cast of "Twelfth Night"
Subscribe to Forbes Life: https://www.youtube.com/c/ForbesLife?sub_confirmation=1
Stay Connected
Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbesvideo
Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbesvideo
More From Forbes: http://forbes.com
Forbes covers the intersection of entrepreneurship, wealth, technology, business and lifestyle with a focus on people and success.
Category
🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
00:00This program for artists specifically has real resonance because the idea that folks are coming here and are sacrificing their time waiting in line in order to attend these outdoor performances for free is really meaningful.
00:18The artists, when they're on stage, they can feel the energy from those crowds.
00:21It's very different than when someone's paid $200, $300, $800 to go and see Othello on Broadway, for instance.
00:29That transaction, your audience is just waiting for you to prove to them that they deserve the money.
00:37That doesn't happen here at Shakespeare in the Park. There's just this energy that everybody's in it together.
00:43He hath bore me on his back a thousand times, and now how abhorred in my imagination it is.
00:50My gorge rises at it.
00:54Here hung those lips that I have kissed, I know not how oft.
00:59Where be your jibes now?
01:02The Public Theater was founded in the mid-50s by Joe Papp.
01:05He began his theater career by taking touring productions of Shakespeare all throughout the five boroughs of New York City.
01:14And it was his supposition that exposing people to Shakespeare in their own neighborhoods would actually be a very powerful way to help them understand that the culture was theirs.
01:23So this venue was constructed between 1961 and we opened it in 1962 with George C. Scott in The Merchant of Venice, playing Shylock.
01:32Often people wonder whether or not Shakespeare in the Park is for them, generally because they think Shakespeare is some vaunted writer who they're not going to be able to understand, they won't be able to understand the poetry, they won't be able to understand the story.
01:46The reality is Shakespeare was writing for a broad constituency.
01:52He was writing for the plebeians on the ground and the lords and ladies in the balconies over the stage.
01:59His writing already took that under consideration.
02:02And the beauty of Shakespeare, one of our directors recently said Shakespeare is like tofu, that you can mix things with it and it sort of absorbs the flavor.
02:11And so the vernacular of the Shakespeare that we create is a very American Shakespeare and it speaks in its own very American vernacular.
02:20No one's on stage trying to speak with an English accent and to sound as if they were spouting sonnets while they're taking a shower.
02:28Everybody is here very much in the moment and in the now.
02:32And the performances that we do because the artists who we're working with live in this world just like we do are responding to what's around them.
02:40And the beauty of Shakespeare is it can actually absorb all of that.
02:44The stories are such human stories and they're such universal stories.
02:49And it's very easy for almost anyone to come and understand, to understand the story, to sort of feel like they're following it.
02:58Even if you don't catch every single word, the story is there and the just incredible artistry is.
03:05There have been an incredible number of performers who got their start here at the Delacorte.
03:11Joe was really a path breaker.
03:14He was a person who was way out ahead of the theater scene here in the city.
03:19I think most famously Meryl Streep started here while she was still a student at Yale studying drama.
03:27As I said, George C. Scott, James Earl Jones, Anne Hathaway, just an incredible set of luminary artists.
03:37You know, when you come out to Central Park to see a show, it begins earlier in the day.
03:42You actually have to line up in Central Park.
03:44We have a line that winds down one of the paths that's near the Delacorte.
03:47And you wait.
03:48And if you're anticipating that it's going to be a very popular show, you might get here prettier early in the morning.
03:54Folks are showing up at, you know, 6 a.m. when the park opens.
03:57They're bringing in a picnic blanket, and they're often meeting people that they've never met before.
04:01And we have literally heard from folks who were like,
04:03I made this friend, and now every year we, like, try to go on the same day and wait for a ticket.
04:09Coming into the theater, you have 1,800 people seated around you.
04:11All of them, just like you, have sacrificed their time and their effort to come and see the program.
04:17And it always begins a little bit before the sun goes down.
04:22And then as you're sitting and watching the show, the sun very gently lowers.
04:27Often the moon comes up, and you are just lost in this world, surrounded by Central Park.
04:33Belvedere Castle is in the background behind the stage, and it's just the most romantic experience ever.
04:41Obviously, when you come to see a show here, the beautiful thing about theater is that it tells you where to look,
04:46and it says, look on stage and look at this beautiful set and these wonderful actors and everything that we've created for you.
04:53And it doesn't say, look backstage or look all around you at the things that are kind of like held together with, you know, scotch tape.
05:01Since the theater was built in the 60s, about every 15 or 20 years, it needed some sort of architectural intervention.
05:08But to date, they haven't really been significant.
05:10Most of those interventions did things like replace the seats, replace the decking, replace the seat or facade.
05:17Of course, it's exposed 365 days of the year to the elements in the park, to the sun, et cetera.
05:24In the early 60s, Robert Moses, who was at the time the parks commissioner, the all-powerful Robert Moses,
05:31decided that Joe Papp should actually charge for tickets.
05:35And Joe said, no, sir, this program is called Free Shakespeare in the Park.
05:40That actually betrays the very essence of what I have been doing for the last eight years.
05:45So Joe actually finally won in court.
05:47The judge said that Moses was being arbitrary and capricious.
05:51And he agreed that Joe could continue to not charge for Shakespeare in the Park.
05:55We really wanted to ensure that this theater, which in 1962 was in some ways almost built like a pop-up venue.
06:04We really wonder if Moses thought that this theater was going to last for a long time
06:09or if Joe Papp and his whole free, silly Shakespeare in the Park enterprise would just dry up and blow away.
06:15Of course, 60 years later, we were with a venue that still had at its bones a sort of very temporary feel.
06:22So we needed to make sure that we are keeping this theater as stable as possible from a physical standpoint for as long as possible.
06:30So that was really a big focus of our renovation.
06:33We operate the Delcourt Theater through a license agreement with the New York City Parks Department.
06:38And we were paying for all the maintenance and upkeep.
06:41And Patrick was interested in understanding what the relationship was between the city and the building that they own
06:46and their responsibilities to it and our responsibilities to it.
06:50The renovation had a number of challenges, not the least of which were sitting in the middle of Central Park.
06:55Central Park is one of the most beloved, but also one of the most highly regulated areas in Manhattan.
07:01So we had all sorts of approvals that we needed to work through.
07:05There were studies done, various types of studies done for the Delacourt.
07:09What was ultimately decided was the approach that you now see, which was one that really nestled into the park,
07:17respected the footprint of the original Delacourt, and was re-envisioned,
07:24but ultimately didn't take up any more space or volume within the scenic landmark of Central Park.
07:30The project is about $85 million all in.
07:35So we worked to apply for funding from the administration, city council, and borough president
07:41over the course of three or four years to accumulate about 50% of the costs and then raised the rest privately.
07:50So in reshaping the theater, we gave it a different form.
07:56We kept the existing structure here, which is why we call it a renovation.
08:00But everything else was completely stripped and taken away.
08:03I like to say that the shape suggests that the theater actually rises out of its site
08:09and its landscape here in Central Park so that it belongs here amongst the trees.
08:14But that form did a couple things for us, aesthetically gave a more dynamic presence, that tilt.
08:20The texture really gives it a stronger sense of scale and movement.
08:25But it also gave us more space in the grandstand to hold another row of seats.
08:31That extra space allowed us to make wider, generally wider seats within the theater,
08:37a cross aisle that never existed with 88 spots at some of the best locations in the theater.
08:44I think we've got 34 ADA accessible spots now, more than double what was there before.
08:50And they are, I would say, the best seats in the house.
08:54Previously, you could only enter from one of the entrances if you're a person who had a mobility disability.
09:00And you could only sit in the front row, which sounds great in theory,
09:04but as we all know are actually not always the best seats.
09:08So the design really intentionally pushed on finding ways to make more of the theater accessible in different locations
09:17and to create more accessible seats overall.
09:20This is a permanent structure, has a lot of infrastructure within it that the old theater didn't have.
09:26Life safety systems, sprinkler systems, alarm systems.
09:29The electrical systems built in so that they're not running cables to extension cords and waters coming down.
09:36All these things are built in.
09:38The facade is one of my favorite parts of this renovation.
09:42Prior to this, there's a little bit of the derelict baseball stadium feel.
09:49It didn't really feel as elevated, particularly when you think about what happens inside the theater.
09:54You're in that space and you're seeing some of the greatest artists of our time doing Shakespeare,
09:59some of the most amazing performances, gorgeous production values, but outside never match the inside.
10:05And one of the things that we wanted to do was really elevate the outside experience.
10:09To say to the people of the city, whose theater this is, great stuff is happening inside, please come.
10:15And to give them a bit of the dignity and respect that we want them to feel once they're sitting inside the theater.
10:22The idea is that the theater really has a dynamic presence on the exterior, working with the treescape,
10:28the textured facade, the bark of the trees, light and shadow.
10:33But at the same time, once you enter the theater and sit in your seat, the theater disappears.
10:40And the show, the setting of being out here in Central Park are what takes front stage.
10:46So, the facade has actually been created by utilizing redwood, which has been reclaimed from water towers all around New York City.
10:56So, one of our teams says this is the most romantic idea she can think of,
11:01that this redwood, which has been pulled off of the roofs of buildings that held life-sustaining water throughout all five boroughs,
11:08is now across the whole facade of our venue.
11:12I'm really excited about this renovation. It is a true signal, especially in this moment, in our country and in the world,
11:22that the culture is everyone's. There are no walls separating anyone from it.
11:28This space is all about inclusion. It's all about welcoming people back.
11:32And I'm really excited for the signal that this space is going to send to the entire city,
11:37that both the culture belongs to them, but also that we respect all the folks who want to participate in our program,
11:45who want to be an audience member, who want to be an actor, who want to be a director or a stagehand.
11:51The space is far more welcoming for absolutely everyone. And that was so, so important.
11:57What remained always a priority, and that was with us as well as with the public, of course,
12:02was to preserve the most important aspect of the experience of the Delacorte,
12:07which was and is and used to be the open-air experience of the theater within Central Park.
12:14And that is an iconic experience that really had to be retained.
12:19We started doing distributions of tickets in different locations in the five boroughs.
12:25So every day there's a distribution of tickets in a different location outside of Central Park,
12:31with the goal being that if you're a person who lives in Staten Island and wants to come,
12:36but the thought of coming all the way, waiting in line, going home and taking a shower,
12:41coming back, seeing a three-hour-long play, and then going home again,
12:44just feels like too limiting that we're providing that way that folks can get tickets.
12:49We also do distributions at our headquarters downtown on Astor Place.
12:53So we really try to provide a lot of different opportunities for folks to be able to get in.
12:58We're opening the theater with Twelfth Night, and Twelfth Night is being directed by Saheem Ali,
13:03who is our associate artistic director and also one of our resident directors.
13:08And he is the most joyful director. His productions just exude happiness.
13:15starring in this season show are Lupita Nyong'o, her little brother junior who has just gotten out of acting school,
13:23Sandra Oh, Daphne Rubin-Vega, Peter Dinklage, Jesse Tyler Ferguson,
13:29a really, really fabulous crew of actors, and the show is just going to be glorious.
Be the first to comment