Public/Private – My Life with Joe Papp at The Public Theater: Gail Merrifield Papp in Conversation with George C Wolfe

Why does someone start a theater? What is its purpose? Who’s it for? Who creates it? How is it kept afloat? Why should anyone care? Also, why am I alive? What is the meaning of existence? These were the kinds of questions that Joe Papp, who founded New York City’s free New York Shakespeare Festival and the Public Theater, asked himself throughout his career as a theatrical producer. Such questions were basic to his fiercely democratic viewpoint ...