Joseph Papp
(1921-1991)

founder and impresario of the New York Shakespeare Festival / Public Theater

Died aged c. 70

Joseph Papp (born Joseph Papirofsky; June 22, 1921 – October 31, 1991) was an American theatrical producer and director. He established The Public Theater in what had been the Astor Library Building in Lower Manhattan. There Papp created a year-round producing home to focus on new plays and musicals. Among numerous examples of these were the works of David Rabe, Ntozake Shange's For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf, Charles Gordone's No Place to Be Somebody (the first off-Broadway play to win the Pulitzer Prize), and Papp's production of Michael Bennett's Pulitzer Prize–winning musical A Chorus Line. Papp also founded Shakespeare in the Park, helped to develop other off-Broadway theatres and worked to preserve the historic Broadway Theatre District.

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Commemorated on 1 plaque

Joseph Papp 1921-1991 The dynamic founder and impresario of the New York Shakespeare Festival / Public Theater began offering free performances of Shakespeare in Central Park in 1954. In 1967 he created The Public Theater, the most important not-for-profit theater in the country. Papp launched over 700 diverse productions, and lived here from 1973 to 1991.

40 East 9th Street New York, NY 10003, New York, NY, United States where they lived