Public Theater Opens A Community of Artists Exhibit at Performing Arts Library
A Community of Artists: 50 Years of the Public Theater, an exhibition of costumes, scripts, posters, set design models, recordings, and videotapes drawn from the archives of both the Public Theater and the personal papers of its late founder Joseph Papp, opens today at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center. On view through October 15, the exhibit marks the official beginning of the Public’s 50th anniversary celebration.
On hand for a special press preview of the exhibition yesterday were Paul LeClerc, president of the New York Public Library; Oskar Eustis and Mara Manus, respectively the Public’s artistic director and executive director; Gail Merrifield Papp, Joseph Papp’s widow and a member of the Public’s board of trustees; and two of the theater’s most celebrated Hamlets, Liev Schrieber and Kevin Kline.
Schreiber, who won a Tony Award earlier this month for his performance in Glengarry Glen Ross, said that he wouldn’t have been on the Radio City stage accepting that award had it not been for his work with the Public, where he’s played Cymbeline, Iago, Henry V, and other Shakespearean roles. Speaking of the exhibit, he said: “To walk through this and see the history is amazing. I can’t remember the people I met last week, but these performances will stay in my mind until the day I die.”
Tony and Oscar winner Kline recalled that his first professional acting job — in the summer of 1970 — was as a “spear carrier” in the Public’s production of The War of the Roses plays (all three parts of Henry VI and Richard III). He got the job when the head of the Juilliard drama division, John Houseman — whom Kline imitated brilliantly — called Papp and asked for an audition for his soon-to-be-student. (Kline began his studies at Juilliard in the fall of 1970.)
Among the many highlights of the exhibition are audio recordings from musicals that began at the Public, including Hair, Two Gentlemen of Verona, and Caroline, or Change, plus a one-hour videotape that includes excerpts of performances by Meryl Streep and Raul Julia in The Taming of the Shrew and the original cast of A Chorus Line.
Visitors can see costumes from three different productions of Much Ado About Nothing (1972, 1998, 2004) as well as clothes worn by such stars as Streep (Trelawny of the “Wells”), Irene Worth (The Cherry Orchard), Tracey Ullman (The Taming of the Shrew), Diane Venora (Hamlet), and Eartha Kitt (The Wild Party). Equally fascinating are the models of Ming Cho Lee’s sets for the Delacorte productions of Love’s Labour Lost, Electra, and The Comedy of Errors, among others. The exhibit concludes with a scrolling list of more than 7,000 artists who have worked at the Public, projected on a 25-foot-wide wall.
