Joseph Papp

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Papp, Joseph [ Joseph Papirofsky] (1921–91), American theatre producer-director, who had over 10 years' theatrical experience, mostly backstage, before founding the New York Shakespeare Festival in 1954. His first productions were given in the Emanuel Presbyterian Church in East 6th Street, most of the actors giving their services. Two years later Papp presented Julius Caesar and The Taming of the Shrew in the East River Park amphitheatre, using a portable stage mounted on a truck, but in 1957 the City of New York offered him a site in Central Park, where Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, and The Two Gentlemen of Verona were seen. The company occupied various open-air sites in the Park up to 1962, when a permanent home, the Delacorte Theatre, also in the open air, was built there for it. Financed by public and private donations, it seats 1,936, and as with all Papp's other ventures in the Park admission is free. It opened with a production, directed by Papp himself, of The Merchant of Venice, and achieved an enviable reputation, with the appearance of stars such as James Earl Jones, Julie Harris, and Colleen Dewhurst. Among its productions a musical version of The Two Gentlemen of Verona in 1971 was particularly successful, later having a long run at the St James Theatre. Meanwhile Papp had founded the Public Theatre in 1967, and in 1973 he also became director of the Vivian Beaumont and the Mitzi E. Newhouse theatres in the Lincoln Center. A financial crisis in 1977 forced him to relinquish the management of the last two theatres, though he still retained control of his earlier projects. In 1980 another crisis compelled the Delacorte to stage only one production, a modernized version of Gilbert and Sullivan's The Pirates of Penzance. Fortunately it was an outstanding success, later having a long run at the Uris Theatre (now the Gershwin), and Papp's difficulties were finally resolved by the award of a permanent subsidy from the City of New York. In 1981 there was once again a Shakespeare season at the Delacorte, with Henry IV, Part One and The Tempest. The Delacorte staged some of the productions in the complete Shakespeare cycle begun by Papp at the Public Theatre in 1988.

Papp, Joseph [né Papirofsky] (1921–91), producer, manager, and director. He was born in Brooklyn and studied at Hollywood's Actors Laboratory, where he then served as managing director from 1948 to 1950. After understudying both sons in a touring company of Death of a Salesman, for which he was also stage manager, Papp returned to New York. There he directed and sometimes produced a number of Off‐Broadway mountings. In 1954 he founded the Shakespearean Theatre Workshop, which in time evolved into the New York Shakespeare Festival. The rest of his career was inextricably tied to that organization, presenting dozens of new playwrights, actors, directors, and designers for the first time. Papp was a volatile, passionate, controversial figure. He refused to identify left‐wing artists to the House Committee for Un‐American Activities, returned an NEA grant for $748,000 rather than sign an antiobscenity pledge, and once declared, “If this theatre isn't being criticized for being too extreme, there's something wrong.” Critics and playgoers did not always agree with Papp's productions, but they usually admired and defended him all the same. Biography: Joe Papp: An American Life, Helen Epstein, 1994.

Joseph Papp 1921–91, American theatrical director and producer, b. Brooklyn, N.Y. as Joseph Papirofsky. Papp, a major influence in American theater, founded the nonprofit New York Shakespeare Festival (now called Shakespeare in the Park) in 1954. He sought to make Shakespeare's works and other plays available to the public. In 1957 the city granted him a site in Central Park for free productions of Shakespeare, and a permanent theater for the project opened in 1962. Persevering and energetic, Papp also obtained (1967) from the city the Astor Library Building, where he produced plays, movies, and experimental works by new artists in the Public Theater (since 1992, the Joseph Papp Public Theater). Several of his productions, such as Hair (1967) and A Chorus Line (1975, Tony Award), moved to Broadway; the profits helped finance the Public Theater for many years. A strong advocate of creative freedom, Papp was an important promoter of off-Broadway theater and also did much to advance the careers of many fine actors and playwrights.

Bibliography: See oral history by K. Turan and J. Papp (2009); biographies by S. Little (1974) and H. Epstein (1994).