Delacorte Theater

The Delacorte Theater, established in 1962, is an open-air theater located in Manhattan's Central Park. The Delacorte is owned by the City of New York and operated by The Joseph Papp Public Theater. It is a modified theater in the round, with Turtle Pond and Belvedere Castle as backdrop.

Each summer, the Joseph Papp Public Theater presents a series, generally of two productions with two-week runs at the Delacorte, in recent years always including at least one work by William Shakespeare. These are presented free to the public: two tickets per individual are distributed at one p.m. of each performance day on a first-come, first-served basis, although subscribers to the Public Theater may purchase tickets. The line normally begins to form at dawn.

The productions often feature distinguished actors; when this is the case, most famously for a production of Anton Chekhov's The Seagull in 2001 which starred Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline, Natalie Portman, and John Goodman, lines at The Public can be enormous, with New Yorkers camping out along the path leading to the box office the night before.

Most recently a production of Mother Courage and Her Children played at the Delacorte Theater with a cast featuring Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline, and Austin Pendleton. The play by Bertolt Brecht received a new translation by Tony Kushner, music by Jeanine Tesori and direction from George C. Wolfe. Once again, New Yorkers camped out for the chance to get tickets.

Some productions are presented without "stars"; the Public is known for casting both seasoned talent and for providing exposure for up and coming actors, who have included Morgan Freeman, Denzel Washington, Christopher Walken, Marcia Gay Harden, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Patrick Stewart, Jeff Goldblum and Billy Crudup, not to mention dozens of directors and designers.

The theater is named in honor of George T. Delacorte Jr., who donated money for its establishment, after several seasons presented by Papp's Shakespeare Workshop (founded in 1954) had been touring New York's boroughs on temporary staging and had proved the venture. Papp had started seeking funds in 1958 for a permanent outdoor amphitheater in Central Park, under the aegis of Helen Hayes but opposed from the outset by Robert Moses.

The 2007 season productions were Romeo and Juliet, directed by Michael Greif, who directed Rent, and A Midsummer Night's Dream featuring Jon Hill and Mallory Portnoy.

The 2008 season began with Hamlet (27 May - 29 June), with Michael Stuhlbarg in the title role, under the Public Theater's Artistic Director Oskar Eustis. Sam Waterston, who played Hamlet the last time the tragedy was presented at the Thteater (1975), played Polonius. The second presentation was James Rado's, Gerome Ragni's, and Galt MacDermot's Hair (22 July - 14 September) led by Jonathan Groff and Will Swenson. Christopher J. Hahnke took over the role of Claude when Mr. Groff left to film "Taking Woodstock". Hair made its original debut in October 1967 at Joseph Papp's Public Theater, the initial presentation of the theater.

The 2009 season will present Twelfth Night (June 9 to July 12), with Anne Hathaway, and Euripides' The Bacchae (August 11 to September 6), with music by Philip Glass.