New York Shakespeare Festival

Programs: Downtown seasonthe public theater's mainstage season at 425 lafayette street features a diverse line-up of new plays and musicals, as well as shakespeare and other classics, in five theaters. The downtown programming aims to present the most pressing issues of the time, as told by the field's most cutting-edge voices, to the broadest possible audience. Six plays received their world premiere - richard nelson's the gabriels: election year in the life of one family play two: what did you expect; richard nelson's the gabriels: election year in the life of one family play three: women of a certain age; nia vardalos' tiny beautiful things; david byrne's joan of arc; ethan lipton's the outer space; and martin sherman's gently down the stream. New york premieres included lynn nottage's sweat (2017 pulitzer prize), universes's party people, and john leguizamo's latin history for morons (2018 tony award nominee for best play). The thirteenth under the radar festival, a platform for us-based and international devised theater groups, presented the work of 21 contemporary theater companies featuring over 200 artists from across the us and around the world. The 12-day festival in january 2017 attracted an audience of 3,700 people to the public theater and countless more to its partner venues.

shakespeare in the parkfree shakespeare in the park at the delacorte theater in central park embodies the public theater's mission to offer the highest quality work to everyone, free of charge. Since its inception more than 5 million people have enjoyed performances by both emerging and world-renowned artists. Continuing a long-held tradition, all tickets for shakespeare in the park are offered free of charge through a variety of distribution methods in all five boroughs designed to maximize accessibility. For patrons with hearing and vision impairments, the public theater offers a sign-interpreted, open-captioned and audio-described performance for each production. The 2017 shakespeare in the park season, its 55th season at the delacorte, presented two productions over nine weeks, reaching an audience over 100,000. The first production was julius caesar, directed by public theater artistic director oskar eustis, featuring gregg henry, corey stoll, and elizabeth marvel. The second was a midsummer night's dream, directed by lear debessonet, and starring annaleigh ashford, danny burstein, and phylicia rashad.

joe's pubone of new york city's most celebrated venues for emerging and established performance artists, joe's pub is committed to reflecting the diverse community that it represents in its audience and on its stage by programming a variety of high-quality performances, while keeping ticket prices at a minimum. Named for public theater founder joe papp, joe's pub debuted in 1998 and plays a vital role in the public theater's mission of supporting young artists while providing established artists with an intimate space to perform and develop new work. As part of the public theater's 2016-17 programming downtown at 425 lafayette street, joe's pub presented talent from all over the world, hosting approximately 800 shows and serving over 100,000 audience members. The diverse roster of programming featured top performers from broadway, cabaret, dance, world, singer-songwriter, jazz, country and indie genres.

community programsthe mobile unit, a contemporary version of the public theater's initial touring model, not only seeks out diverse audiences but serves audiences whose access to arts experiences are severely inhibited by their environments the mobile unit focuses on touring productions to prisons, halfway houses, community centers and other places where the most critically under-served and overlooked parts of the population are congregated. These productions are then presented as part of the downtown season at 425 lafayette street. Over the years, the mobile unit has served thousands of audiences with critically acclaimed productions. In the fall of 2016, the mobile unit embarked on a three-week, 13 venue tour of the five boroughs, featuring free performances of shakespeare's hamlet. In the spring of 2017, a similar tour was mounted of twelfth night. Both tours were followed by downtown runs at the public theater that offered entirely free tickets, with 20 tickets for each performance reserved for community organizations. In addition to the two full shakespeare tours, the mobile unit expanded its programming by including a spanish language staged reading and a concert tour by joe's pub artist imani uzuri. Public works partners with social service organizations serving those who stand to benefit most from the transformative power of theater. Over the last five years, public works has led workshops with its partners, brought them to the theater many times, held communal potlucks, and formed deep and real relationships with the organizations and their clients. For the 2016-2017 season, public works continued to work with fortune society (queens), dreamyard (the bronx), the brownsville recreation center (brooklyn) as core community partners, center for family life at sunset park (queens), casita maria (bronx), and the military resilience project (all boroughs). The children's aid society (manhattan) and domestic workers united (staten island and citywide) sustained alumni relationships, engaging in the public works community while at the same time making room to invite new primary partners to the table. The season culminated with a four-night run of the original musical adaptation of twelfth night, featuring music by shaina tauba and directed by kwame kwei-armah. This production featured over 200 community players at the delacorte theater. New work development & ancillary programs:public studio is dedicated exclusively to developing the work of emerging writers. It provides a laboratory environment in which playwrights can rehearse with actors and a director, incorporate bare bones design elements, and open the process to an audience over a series of performances. More than a reading or workshop but not a full production, this middle step affords early career writers the important opportunity to deepen their experience of working collaboratively over an extended rehearsal period and to see their work staged in front of an audience. The public theater's writer's initiative is a 3-tiered program that supports playwrights at every stage of their careers. Emerging writers group offers 2-year fellowships that provides artistic resources, community, and access to the theatrical development industry. Mid-career writers programming takes the form of commissions, readings, workshops, festivals and production opportunities in the public lab and mainstage seasons. In 2016-2017 over 40 readings and workshops were held, often producing multiple readings of a playwright's new piece and thus offering multiple development opportunities. Suzan-lori parks continued for eighth year as master writer chair, a framework to support master playwrights in nonprofit theaters.