--- title: There Will Be Bard: Shakespeare in the Park | TIME description: 20 years after the death of Joseph Papp, the founder of New York City's Public Theater, his legacy of free entertainment for all lives on in a new season of Shakespeare in the Park canonical: https://time.com/video/UUmH9Cuf/ og:title: There Will Be Bard: Shakespeare in the Park og:description: 20 years after the death of Joseph Papp, the founder of New York City's Public Theater, his legacy of free entertainment for all lives on in a new season of Shakespeare in the Park og:url: https://time.com/video/UUmH9Cuf/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/UUmH9Cuf/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: There Will Be Bard: Shakespeare in the Park twitter:description: 20 years after the death of Joseph Papp, the founder of New York City's Public Theater, his legacy of free entertainment for all lives on in a new season of Shakespeare in the Park twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/UUmH9Cuf/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # There Will Be Bard: Shakespeare in the Park > Sponsored content. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: There Will Be Bard: Shakespeare in the Park [Watch (HLS stream): There Will Be Bard: Shakespeare in the Park](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/UUmH9Cuf.m3u8) (4:04)  _Published 2011-07-15. 20 years after the death of Joseph Papp, the founder of New York City's Public Theater, his legacy of free entertainment for all lives on in a new season of Shakespeare in the Park_ --- Jul 27, 2023 3:15 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [Money Does Shakespeare](/video/gOPAUCFv/) ### Money Does Shakespeare [Prince Charles Recites Shakespeare to Honor Queen's 90th Birthday](/video/GcmgFmMe/) ### Prince Charles Recites Shakespeare to Honor Queen's 90th Birthday [Shakespeare: Staging the World](/video/t3VHvdUY/) ### Shakespeare: Staging the World --- ## Transcript Beer, wine, soda, chips. Summer in New York, and it's time for one of the city's favorite traditions, Shakespeare in the Park. Back this season with Shakespeare's dark comedies, Measure For Measure and, All's Well That Ends Well. The plays will be performed in repertory, for eight straight weeks. We get to be in an audience of our fellow New Yorkers, hearing the great works of Shakespeare, and I just love it! Audiences have been enjoying Shakespeare in the Park for 57 years. And this tradition that was founded on free access is now one of the most difficult tickets to get in this city. And the man who began it all was Joseph Papp. And I felt it was absolutely essential that in order to, to attract an audience that represented all groups. I felt even a quarter would be too much, because I feel there are public libraries that are free. I felt a city the size of New York should have a public theater. 1, 800 lucky ticket holders pack into the beautiful Dellacorte Theater in Central Park. To watch performances six nights a week under the open skies. Oskar Eustis is the director of the public theater. Joseph Papp found it. Shakespeare in the Park is about offering up the greatest writer to everybody. It's also about making sure that everybody gets to play Shakespeare. Everybody with talent gets to play Shakespeare. That stage needs to look like America as well as that audience. I humbly thank you sir. On stage this summer is Andre Holland, an NYU graduate who jumped at the opportunity to play Claudio, the young nobleman whose life is on the line. And the bard's measure for measure. Fine life, let it come on. What Shakespeare did for me, and what it means to me is that it really allows for me to be a part of it. Allows for everybody to have their own unique experience in it. And you know, as actors and also as audience members. So it really, really has a special place in my heart. Holland is the latest in a long line of actors who have performed Shakespeare in the Park, some known only to New York theater goers, others known worldwide. If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? Over the course of the last 50 years because of Shakespeare in the Park, we've built up a muscle in American actors and the American Act Committee for doing Shakespeare. There's a strength of training, there's a continuity of work doing Shakespeare that never existed when Joe started this. Though Papp died in 1991 exactly 20 years ago, his spirit still lives in Central Park. The child of immigrants Papp deeply believed that a tenant of our Democracy is for everyone to have access to great literature and ideas. Even with Uncle Sam's support. Joe Papp started this enterprise, free Shakespeare in the Park, at the birth of the National Endowment of the Arts when government did support public culture, and Papp was the leading advocate of public funding for the arts. Tracy Holder is co- director of the documentary film, Joe Pap in Five Acts. Not only was he important in the theater, but he was also important in the life of the city. He was on the front lines of every public battle, whether it was fighting for the rights of squatters or for people with AIDS. Joe Papp stood up for the public interest. Joe Papp's legacy lives on and his pitbull insistence on free collective entertainment, has people lining up, sometimes for days for tickets to one of the great cultural landmarks in America. This is Rich Benjamin for Time Video. 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