The Music of the Bard: Words & Music of Shakespeare in the Park 1956-1967 at Joe's Pub

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2. The Music of the Bard: Words & Music of Shakespeare in the Park 1956-1967

“We have public libraries. Why not public theaters?” said Joseph Papp, facing down Robert Moses, New York City’s infamous “power broker,” when the New York Theater Workshop was just two years old.

This year marks the 70th birthday of what became Shakespeare in the Park, which we celebrate with David Amram who, from 1956 to 1967, composed the music for 25 productions of its productions. Gail Merrifield Papp, Joe’s widow and theatrical partner for 25 years, will be among the friends joining him for this unique evening.

Amram had recently arrived in  New York and was living in the East Village, composing classical music as well as performing with some of the great names in jazz, when Papp called to ask if he’d compose the music for Titus Andronicus, presented at the Emmanuel Presbyterian Church in 1956. The following summer, he was appointed composer and musical director, an association beginning with Romeo and Juliet. The score was completed in just eighteen hours – for no money! The New York Shakespeare Workshop was by then touring parks and playgrounds across the five boroughs, the stage and set transported by a retrofitted Department of Sanitation truck that got stuck on the grass in Central Park. Joe claimed squatter’s rights and there, on a temporary stage, presented Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth and Two Gentlemen of Verona. Shakespeare in the Park was born.

The Music of the Bard: Words & Music of Shakespeare in the Park 1956-1967 honors Joe Papp’s visionary endeavour and the founding of The Public Theater in the old Astor Library, which had been the City’s first free public library. At the same time, it honors David Amram’s remarkable contribution to Joe’s marriage of theater and civic responsibility – and David’s own belief in music and civic responsibility. Both men believed that arts make the world a better place.

Selections from David’s music for Shakespeare in the Park, as well as selections from his opera 12th Night which he composed to Papp’s libretto, will be sung by baritone Michael Kelly and Adira Amram.

Actors will speak some of Joe’s favorite soliloquies, and Gail Merrifield Papp - who brought such shows as  A Chorus Line and The Normal Heart to the Public Theatre -  will reminisce over a slide show and will read from her recent memoir Public/Private: My Life with Joe Papp at The Public Theater.

Two remarkable figures - David Amram went on to become Leonard Bernstein's first Composer in Residence at the New Yokr Phillharmonic and, after that, to take on the role of Composer and Music Director for the Lincoln Center Theater. With his buddy Jack Kerouac, David brought jazz and poetry to New York in the 1950s. 

The Village Trip is an annual festival celebrating arts and activism in Greenwich Villag and the East Village.