- For the Hungarian-Canadian engineer/inventor, see Josef Papp.
- For the American professional cyclist, see Joseph M. Papp.
Joseph Papp (June 22 1921 - October 31 1991) was an American
theatrical producer and director.
Born in Brooklyn, New York to Jewish immigrants from Russia, Papp founded the New York Shakespeare Festival in 1954 with the aim of making Shakespeare's works accessible to the public.
In 1957 he was granted the use of Central Park for free productions of Shakespeare's
plays. By age 41 after the establishment of the Park's Delacorte Theater, Papp
looked for an all-year theater he could make his own. After looking at other locations, Joe fell in love with Lafayette Street’s
Astor Library for its location and character. With massive renovations in order, Joe moved his staff to his newly named
Public Theater hoping to attract a newer, less conventional audience to new and innovative playwrights.
Papp also obtained the use of the Astor Library Building in 1967; this has since become known as the Joseph Papp Public Theater.
Joe depended on authors more than anyone and saw them in a much higher respect then actors or even directors, and his focus
moved farther away from the Shakespearean classics. With plays such as Charles Gordone’s No Place to Be Somebody (the
first African American dramatist and off-Broadway show to win the Pulitzer Prize) and the plays of David Rabe, Tom Babe, and Jason Miller, Joe brought the
Public into a new phase.
“…[w]ith the new playwrights, the whole direction of the theater changed. Joe changed direction and none of us realized for a
while that he had changed direction. The Public Theater became more important than the Delacorte. The new playwrights became more
interesting to Joe than Shakespeare.“ (Ming Cho Lee, Festival Designer)
Papp is known for his productions of Hair, The Pirates of Penzance, and A Chorus
Line.
In 2000 the Joseph Papp
Children's Humanitarian Fund was founded. The Fund serves as the humanitarian arm of international Jewish children's club
Tzivos Hashem's, activities in the Ukraine. These projects include the ([1]) Esther
and William Benenson and Family Homes for Boys and Girls, ([2]) The
Marcia Wilf and Ira Yavarkovsky Children’s Medical Clinic, ([3]) Food on
Wheels bus,([4]) Wheels for Life bus, ([5]) Eye Care Center and ([6]) Kids to
Kids Clothes, Gift, and Craft Drives. The Fund holds an annual silent auction in New York City as a fundraiser, drawing the
endorsement, and often the attendance, of many contemporary celebrities.
Along with the Public Theater, Papp was best known for the New York Shakespeare Festival, which he founded, but he was also a
Gilbert and Sullivan lover. In 1980, to commemorate the centenary of The Pirates of Penzance, Papp mounted a souped-up,
modernized version of the opera in Central Park. The show was a sensation, and Papp transferred it to the Broadway stage, where
it ran for over 800 performances. It won Tony Awards for Best Revival, Best Director, Wilford Leach, and Best Actor, Kevin Kline,
and Linda Ronstadt was nominated for Best Actress in a Musical. The Papp production was much criticized in Gilbert & Sullivan
circles. To make the opera more suitable for a Broadway audience, Papp's creative team wrote new orchestrations for a
synthesizer-based orchestra. Musical tags were expanded or contracted, verses were transposed. The "fight scene" between the
pirates and police, to which Sullivan had allotted only ten chords, was entirely rewritten. The Act II finale was restored to its
first-night state. Liberties were taken with the dialogue too, though certainly not to the same degree as the music.
Joseph Papp died of prostate cancer, aged 70. His biography was written by journalist Helen Epstein and published in 1994.
External links
Joe Papp Public Theatre: www.publictheater.org by Helen Epstein
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Our contention has always been that Shakespeare is our greatest living author. If he can survive a season on Broadway, he must be.
