Free for All

Finally a Tisch student without offering a play as their favorite book! BUT a book about theatre, a pretty good one.  Free for All (Joe Papp, the Public, and the Greatest Theater Story Ever Told) by Kenneth Turan (with help from Papp himself).  For anyone who isn’t aware of Joe Papp, the icon of the theatre world in NYC during the late 1960s–1990, you are missing something.  The book was a collaboration between the author and the man it was to be written about, but timing was bad and Turan did not finish the book until well after Papp’s death to cancer in 1991.  The author interviewed roughly 150 people about Papp’s life.  Papp was born of immigrant Jewish parents and lived a very desolate life having little to eat and barely a roof over his head.  His rise to the theatre world came through his military career which had him produce shows for our military personnel abroad.  Joe learned many skills and was later hired to work behind the scenes at CBS Television.  A man who could not be stopped, he found his niche back in NYC when he decided to put on free theatre in the parks in NYC, Central Park to be exact!  This was the dawning of what we know now as Shakespeare in the Park, still going strong after all of these years.  The writing of the book is the words of each of the 150+ interviewees who share their perspective on their interactions on the plays/situations with Papp, in a linear fashion.  Papp was the person who pushed today’s messages (AIDS, runaway children, people of color, and feminism) through new playwrights, stories that may not be told otherwise.  Papp was awarded the “Public Theatre,” which was owned by the city of NY, to produce works that would give to the betterment of the community in no better place than in Greenwich Village.  I walk past the Public almost every day, as well as the homestead of Joe Papp on 9^th street.  Papp was a grueling and driven man who could not be stopped.  He won numerous awards producing and directing works at the Public that later went on to Broadway, to include A Chorus Line, Pirates of Penzance, Hair, Runaways (with NYU faculty Liz Swados!), That Championship Season, and a Normal Heart.  His list of amazing acting talent included: Charles Durning, Kevin Kline, George C. Scott, Martin Sheen, Madeline Kahn, and Colleen Dewhurst.  The playwrights included: David Rabe, Sam Shepherd, James Rado, Larry Kramer, Jerome Kass, and Nicholas Dante.  He also worked with other “big light” Broadway folks such as Marvin Hamlisch, Bob Avian, and Michael Bennett.  Amazing how Papp never could be stopped and was such a force in what we experience as today’s theatre in NYC.  For those with a theatre background, this book is a great way to remember the days of the 70s through 90s!