The Public Theater has produced over 120 plays and musicals at the Delacorte Theater in New York City's Central Park since the theater's opening in 1962. Currently the series is produced under the brand Free Shakespeare in the Park , and all productions are staged at the Delacorte. In past decades, the series was branded The New York Shakespeare Festival and encompassed productions at both the Delacorte and the Public's downtown location in the former Astor Library.
Henry VIII , staged in 1997, was celebrated as the final work of the Shakespearean canon to be performed as part of the series, [1] but within productions staged at the Delacorte, Macbeth was not performed until 2006 and, as of yet [update] , the three parts of Henry VI have not been performed except as the heavily abridged Wars of the Roses in 1970.
With the 2022 season, As You Like It joined Measure for Measure , Twelfth Night , and Much Ado About Nothing as the most-performed works, each having been produced six times (including musical adaptations).
All plays are by William Shakespeare. Except as noted, all productions were staged in Central Park on or adjacent to the site of the future Delacorte Theater.
All plays are by William Shakespeare except as noted.
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Joseph Papp was an American theatrical producer and director. He established The Public Theater in what had been the Astor Library Building in Lower Manhattan. There Papp created a year-round producing home to focus on new plays and musicals. Among numerous examples of these were the works of David Rabe, Ntozake Shange's For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf, Charles Gordone's No Place to Be Somebody, and Papp's production of Michael Bennett's Pulitzer Prize–winning musical A Chorus Line. Papp also founded Shakespeare in the Park, helped to develop other off-Broadway theatres and worked to preserve the historic Broadway Theatre District.
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The Delacorte Theater is a 1,800-seat open-air theater in Central Park, in the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is home to the Public Theater's free Shakespeare in the Park productions. As of September 2023, it has been closed for renovations that are expected to complete in spring 2025.
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