New York Shakespeare Festival425 Lafayette StreetNew York, NY 10003212.539.8500 | publictheater.org

JULY 2014

This spring saw the launch of Public Studio, which offers emerging writers the building blocks for a formative and enriching experience for them to develop new work and grow as artists. A. Zell Williams and Mary Kathryn Nagle stood out as bold new voices with immense talent and ambition. It is inspiring to know that these two writers are at the forefront of new writing for the American Theater, and thrilling to watch them take this journey from early pre-production days of casting, design, and script development through sharing their new work with our wonderful audiences. A very special thank you to The Mellon Foundation, The Tow Foundation, and Time Warner for their extraordinary leadership in supporting the creation of this new program.

As I write this, there are no less than 200 stalwart, determined New York citizens standing on a line in Central Park hoping to see the first show of our 2014 season of Free Shakespeare in the Park, Much Ado About Nothing. Have you ever stood (or sat or slept) on the line waiting to see a show at The Delacorte? As you will read in PublicLook’s “Stories from the Line,” it is a singular experience! Bringing artists and audiences together under the stars is one of the great hallmarks of this institution, and our programming in the Park continues to expand every year. Many thanks to the marvelous Luke McDonough who tells us about the joyous challenges of keeping the costumes and the actors dry, and Todd Almond who gives us a sneak peek into the creation of September’s The Winter’s Tale for our Public Works program. Thank you for your ongoing support. See you at the theater!

-PATRICK WILLINGHAM, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

for our

Freestyle Love Supreme at Joe’s Pub. Photo by Monica Simoes

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-MANDY HACKETT, ASSOCIATE ARTISTIC DIRECTOR

BOOK YOUR SEATS TODAY FOR OUR 2014-2015 SEASON!

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Lin Manuel Miranda (HAMILTON) is part of Freestyle Love Supreme, a hip-hop improv group that performs at Joe’s Pub. Michael Friedman (THE FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE), Stew & Heidi Rodewald (THE TOTAL BENT), Young Jean Lee (STRAIGHT WHITE MEN), and Bridget Everett (ROCK BOTTOM) are also familiar faces at Joe’s Pub!

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GFree, outdoor theater is a wonderful thing, unless you happen to be in charge of the costumes.

“You’ve got all sorts of things that can happen outdoors,” says Luke McDonough, The Public Theater’s Costume Master for more than 20 seasons. “It can rain. If it’s a downpour, they stop the performance, but mostly there’s a lot of drizzle. The heat becomes an issue. The perspiration becomes a huge issue. People sit in things. You’re outside. What’s that stain? Is it a bug? Is it grease? The backstage at the Delacorte is under the seats, and it’s not a clean place.”

McDonough is talking in his office at The Public Theater on Lafayette Street, a pleasant space carved out somewhere atop Joe’s Pub, with books stacked on the floor, color-coded charts on a bulletin board, and a tape measure unfurled next to a calculator on the desk. Lanky, graying, and quietly enthusiastic, he’s been on staff at The Public since 1985, starting as an assistant, and he estimates he’s worked on more than 300 productions. He refers to the Shakespeare Festival founder only as “Mr. Papp.”

With a staff that can grow to as large as two dozen, depending on the production, he’s responsible for executing a costume designer’s vision and then maintaining those costumes through a show’s run. The Public’s summer home presents unique challenges. There was the 1992 As You Like It featuring live sheep—which during at least one performance began

nibbling on the fringe of an actress’s dress. There was the fat suit built for Jay O. Sanders in Twelfth Night, with special pockets sewn inside the costume, to hold ice packs. There was the high school marching band in Love’s Labour’s Lost last summer. They drove down from Middletown, N.Y., for each performance, and, upon arrival, needed space for around 40 kids to get into costumes that were partly their own uniforms and partly items The Public provided, “to jazz things up.” There are precious few dressing rooms.

But mostly McDonough worries about rain. He recalls the opening night of the initial HAIR revival, when the skies opened during “Let the Sun Shine In,” and everything—cast, audience, costumes—got soaked. Some items can go in the dryer, but most costumes dry out the old-fashioned way. “You put them in front of fans,” he says, “and you hope the next day is sunny.”

It is, ultimately, an integral part of the magic. “Last summer in The Comedy of Errors,” McDonough says, “It got to be one of those drizzly nights toward the end of the play, and they didn’t want to cancel the show. The actors wanted to continue, the audience wasn’t leaving, and so they just decided to finish the play. And the audience loved it, and the actors were just over the moon. And we had 25 wet costumes that had to be dried out.”

THE PUBLIC THEATER IS PROUD TO ANNOUNCE TIDE® AS THE OFFICIAL WARDROBE CARE PARTNER OF FREE SHAKESPEARE IN THE PARK.

Pictured: (left) Luke McDonough, photo by Tam

my Shell; (right) Todd Alm

ond in THE TEMPEST, photo by Joan M

arcus. Written by Jesse Oxfeld

It’s the week before Memorial Day, and Todd Almond hasn’t figured out how to open the Public Works version of A Winter’s Tale. This Shakespeare pageant—“we’re decidedly unashamed of the word ‘pageant’,” he says—won’t open until September, with its cast of more than 200, original songs by Almond, and adaptation and direction by Lear deBessonet. But a draft of the script is done, rehearsals will soon begin, and Almond is struggling with how to start the show with the right bang.

“We don’t want this to feel like just any version of The Winter’s Tale,” he says. “It’s the Public Works version of The Winter’s Tale. So it should be pretty spectacular.” The very successful inaugural show last year was The Tempest, which begins with a shipwreck. Almond wrote a shipwreck song, and he and deBessonet found a Japanese Taiko drumming group, to convey the intensity. The Winter’s Tale opens with quiet dialogue. “It’s two people talking about two kings,” he says. “They’re like, ‘Wow, those kings sure get along, don’t they?’” He laughs, a lot. “The first scene of Winter’s Tale is not that helpful to us.”

At 6-foot-6, the 37-year-old Almond is both bearish and boyish, hulking and excitable. He’s extraordinarily prolific: He writes music, he performs (he played Ariel in The Tempest and will be Antigonus, who makes the famous ursine-chased exit, in Winter’s Tale), and he music-directs cabaret shows for singers including Laura Benanti. Sitting in a courtyard behind his midtown apartment building, he gets a little lost in thought as he sketches some ideas for the opening. “I feel like the rest of it is really good,” he says. “But this opening number is the thing that’s hard.”

The logistics are another thing that’s hard. These Public Works productions are 90-minute, community-inclusive, musical adaptations of Shakespeare’s plays. For The Tempest, there were six professional actors in the leading roles (including Norm Lewis as Prospero and Benanti as the Goddess), a chorus of 115 selected from community groups like the Children’s Aid Society and Domestic Workers’ United, plus seven independent performance groups, including the Taiko drummers, a Mexican dance troupe, a children’s ballet company, and a Balkan marching band.

With such a sprawling band of performers and so little rehearsal time, the key, Almond says, is to work to everyone’s strengths. The performance groups are encouraged to do their thing. “Part of what’s fun, and part of what’s scary,” he says, “is I’ll say to this Balkan hipster marching band, ‘Here’s the song I want you to play, but you know what you do better than I know what you do. So why don’t you take it and do something with it.’ What’s fun about that is we end up with sounds I wouldn’t have come up with. But what’s scary is that I don’t know whether I’ll like it. And maybe I’ll hate it.” He laughs again. “Knock on wood, that hasn’t happened yet.”

Plus, he still has to finish the opening.

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COSTUME MASTER LUKE MCDONOUGH SHARES SOME OF THE CHALLENGES OF COSTUMING AT THE DELACORTE

Todd Almond: he writes, he performs, he exits (pursued by a bear)

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Stories from

I remember one day the ticket line was so long that it was

pouring rain on the back of the line while the sun was shining brightly on the front of the line. I’ve never seen anything like it.

Camping out in Central Park for Shakespeare in

the Park tickets is one of my favorite New York activities.

We lay out blankets, play games, take naps, order breakfast from Andy’s Deli (the phone number is programmed into my phone),

watch the dogs…what other time do you allow yourself to just spend the morning in the park with good friends enjoying the

day? It’s bliss. And then, when it’s all done, you get free tickets to Shakespeare! Sure, you get up early in the

morning (or maybe spend the night on the street) but it’s a small price to pay for a morning

in the park and an amazing night of theater.

My high school friends and I had a system that those not fully employed for segments of those summer vacation days would take turns on the line, and those of us who had jobs would bring a picnic dinner as the time got close.

We arrived at the park relatively early (6:15am) but were already the 99th and 100th people in line. Right in front of us was a large group of friends and family who came equipped with lawn chairs, board games, a picnic basket, and a lot of good cheer. Watching them have a great time and bond with each other was really inspiring. It also became obvious to us that this was an annual tradition for them, and that it was something they had started when their then teenage kids were still in elementary school. It was their New York thing to do as family and beyond the fact that it’s a cool family tradition, it was also amazing to see how the Public’s awesome productions not only appealed to multiple generations, but were also timeless (in that the children remain interested in it over the years). Since then, we’ve tried to see Shakespeare in the Park every year we can. We can’t wait for our daughter to be old enough to join us.

It was the night before the final performance of Twelfth Night, and there we all were arranged in lawn chairs and sleeping bags along

Central Park West when the torrential rains came. Out come the garbage bags and umbrellas and you do anything you can to stay dry, which is hard in a typhoon… It must have been around 2am when the rain stopped, and

suddenly there was Anne Hathaway & the cast, pizza

boxes in hand, handing out hot slices to us.

My advice? Make friends with your line-mates, and definitely thank the cast

when they offer you pizza.

We knew with Meryl Streep starring as Mother Courage,

we needed to get in line early! We drove down from Canada and arrived at 7am armed with coffee and

muffins. It was a gorgeous summer day, and we happily chatted with all the people around us, some Public-stand-in-line veterans and some tourists, like

us. After getting to know everyone in the morning, it was so fun to come back that night and sit with the same people—new friends. The show was

outstanding and the whole experience so joyful that we didn’t think twice about dedicating a whole day of our trip to this adventure.

I was waiting in line for The Comedy of Errors when I struck up a conversation with the group of people

next to me. Coincidentally, one of the women in the group had just been admitted to the graduate program I was attending at the time! She introduced me to her friends, and we spent the afternoon laughing, playing cards, and talking about school. Don’t worry about getting hungry,

because you can buy food at the refreshment stand outside the theater, or, better yet, order breakfast from a

nearby diner that delivers to people waiting in line.

Also, the saxophone player who serenades

the line-goers takes requests.

Since 1962, more than five million free tickets have been given away to The Public’s performances at The Delacorte. New York City has changed a lot since then, but one thing has remained the same: the experience of waiting in line for the opportunity to experience Free Shakespeare in the Park continues to unite thousands of people all summer long, turning strangers into friends in a summer tradition that goes on year after year.

Thank you to Karen Lichtman, Leora Morris, Pamela Adams, Benjamin

Ehrenreich, Carly Zien, Elaine Chien, and Michael Miraflores for sharing your stories from the line!

* essential

Tweets from the line

“@waffletruck waiting in the delacorte line, will y’all be here today? #ReallyWantWaffles”

“Will be standing in line with the rest of the Shakespeare geeks to get tix for tonight’s performance @ Central Park. Wish me luck!!”

Stay connected with The Public on social media!

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/publictheater

“Reward for standing in line for Shakespeare in the Park tix - you meet your favorite actor, Pedro Pascal.”

“There’s a race going by as I am relaxing in line for Shakespeare in the Park tickets. I’m definitely being more productive.”

“One hour down, 3.5 hours to go. In line for Shakespeare in the Park. #fingerscrossed”

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