Biography

Josef Yossil Papirofsky, the man known (mostly affectionately) by New Yorkers as simply Joe Papp, was born on June 22^nd, 1921, in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, New York.  He was the second of four children of Samuel and Yetta (nee Miritch) Papirofsky.  His parents were Jewish; his father a trunk maker and his mother a seamstress.  According to Mr. Papirofsky (henceforth as Mr. Papp, as he would have wanted), he shortened his name as he was filling out a time-clock card while working at CBS.  He claims he just wanted to get rid of some of the extra vowels.

Papp was raised during the Great Depression, and so worked many odd jobs throughout his early life, from shining shoes to shoveling snow to selling penny pretzels, to working nights at a laundry.  Growing up, Papp’s first language was not English, but Yiddish. 

His fascination with English, and the theater in general, began at an early age; little Joseph played Scrooge in the first grade.  Papp attended Eastern District High School in Williamsburg.  It was there that he had Miss McKay as his English teacher, a woman whom he has attested inspired his desire to bring theater to people without charge.  The power and effectiveness of English, his second language, and especially, the beautiful language of Shakespeare, captivated his imagination.  Papp remembers: “I learned to love the English language and I feel that people should treasure it.” 

Papp was a good English student, but had poor math and science grades, and without the prospects of a college education he began working low-paying positions around Brooklyn, until enlisting in the Navy in 1942.  He served for three years in the Special Services Division, during which time he wrote and staged performances, mostly vaudevillian entertainment, for the sailors on board an aircraft carrier.  After his duties were up, Papp moved to Hollywood and joined the Actors’ Laboratory Theater, an experimental theater troupe, and studied acting and directing under the G.I. Bill of Rights.  Papp stayed with the group, and even served as managing director, until 1950.  He held odd jobs, including one as a stage manager for the national tour of “Death of a Salesmen,” (he even understudied Biff).  Papp was admittedly unqualified; he only got the job because of a misunderstanding among the show’s producer that Papp was famous producer Kermit Bloomgarden’s nephew.

Papp worked as a producer and director of plays that received critical disgust (Brooks Atkinson called his work “amateurish”) outside New York and Off Broadway.  From 1952 until 1960, he worked as a stage manager for CBS and on Broadway.  He was temporarily fired, then rehired, from CBS after appearing before HUAC and refusing to answer their questions, pleading the Fifth Amendment. 

Meanwhile, in 1953, Papp organized the Elizabethan Workshop (later renamed as the Shakespeare Workshop), which was dedicated to giving actors classical training.  He held rehearsals in a small basement meeting hall of a church, after convincing the pastor that it looked just like Shakespeare’s Globe Theater.   In 1956, the Shakespeare Workshop held its first outdoor performance at the East River Park Amphitheater.  2000 people came to watch the unpaid actors, on a budget of $250, perform “Julius Caesar.”  The next production that fateful summer was “The Taming of the Shrew,” and it received critical approbation from one Brooks Atkinson, who called it “one of the pleasantest episodes in the outdoor night life of New York during the summer.”  With this production’s success, Papp’s groundbreaking idea of free Shakespeare for any and all began to be supported by donors. 

Soon, Papp had raised enough money to start his “Mobile Theater” performances.  A stage mounted to a trailer tractor travelled to all five boroughs for a whole summer, before eventually breaking down in Central Park.  Papp decided to leave it there, and thus began the tradition of Shakespeare in the Park.   Performances continued all over the city for three years during the summer, until Papp began to further court city officials for support for his newly established New York Shakespeare Festival.  Robert Moses, a New York city icon and Parks Commissioner, was unwilling to cooperate, claiming that Papp had to charge for tickets in order to offset things like “grass erosion” in the parks.  Papp was unwilling to budge, and, ironically, money poured in as a result; people in high places supported Papp’s ideals.  Eventually, he received a grant from the city to construct a permanent outdoor theater in Central Park: The Delacorte Theater. 

In the mid 1960s, Papp decided to expand the New York Shakespeare Festival into a full-year repertory operation.  He established a headquarters at the almost condemned former Astor Place Library.  Needing a lot of capital in renovations, it was a risk.  Papp’s first production was an early version of the Vietnam War hippy musical “Hair.”  His first non-Shakespeare production, it cemented his commitment to new and different contemporary productions.  As the years passed, the Public Theater began to gain more and more critical acclaim, with many calling it the most influential theater in America.   Public theater shows began moving to Broadway. 

In 1969, met with a huge financial crisis, Papp pulled off a miracle: he convinced the city of New York to buy the Public Theater back from him for $2.6 million dollars, and then lease it back for $1 each year.  It saved the Public.

In 1973, Papp took over production of the Beaumont and Forum Theaters at Lincoln Center on behalf of the NYSF.  Ironically, he had been offered a similar position by Lincoln Center 8 years prior, and had prematurely leaked the offer to the press, only to see it revoked due to breach of contract.  During his brief tenure at Lincoln Center, Papp staged mostly new American plays, including David Rabe’s “Boom Boom Room.”  His plays were met with often mild critical response, but occasionally praise; his successes included “Streamers,” “Threepenny Opera,” and “The Cherry Orchard.”  In 1977, disillusioned with Lincoln Center and unable to fulfill his dream of creating a National American Theater, Papp left to focus on the NYSF and the Public.

In 1974, Papp took perhaps the biggest gamble of his career, and it paid off.  At the behest of his donors, he spent almost $1.1 million work-shopping a concept musical with director Michael Bennett. It’s name? “A Chorus Line.”  The ground-breaking musical was never Papp’s favorite, and towards the end he had serious reservations (the plot is too complex, the ending is unsatisfactory), but it ended up becoming a huge Broadway sensation, running for fifteen years to become the longest-running Broadway musical ever up to that point. 

One (Finale) -- A Chorus Line

“A Chorus Line” paid back Papp’s initial investment over seventy-five times, and made enough cash to establish a permanent endowment of the NYSF and the Public.

The years passed, and Papp’s theater began to decline slowly but surely.  As the late 80s rolled around, many of Papp’s directors had begun to move to the newly established regional theaters, and rumors were circulating that the legend himself was ill.  It turned out to be true; at age 66, in April of 1987, Papp was diagnosed with prostate cancer and given six months to live.  As a sort of a last hurrah, Papp began to produce the Shakespeare Marathon; The Public was going to stage, tape, and document all thirty-six of Shakespeare’s plays. 

Papp lived much longer than expected, but soon began his search for a successor.  He first turned to Meryl Streep, who had worked with him early in her career.  She turned him down.  So did directors Mike Nichols and Jerry Zaks, as well as James Lapine.  Finally, Papp settled on Joanne Akalaitis.  With his health rapidly declining in June of 1991, Papp decided he wanted to bring on Robert Marx, head of the New York Public Library for Performing Arts, as a member of the production team of the Public.  But upon hearing of this new arrangement, both Akalaitis and associate producer James Cohen threatened resignation.  Faced with turmoil and dying slowly but surely, Papp let it go.  He was absent at the Festival of 1991, and according to Akalaitis it felt like “the last days of Mao, or Stalin.” 

Joe Papp passed away at the age of 70 on October 31^st, 1991, in his home in Greenwich Village.  An obituary in the New York Times sums it best: “Joseph Papp lived 70 years, not enough for all he might have done. Never mind. He made the most of them.”  He was survived by his fourth wife, Gail Merrifield Papp, and five children from his other marriages: Tony (who died of AIDS three months before his father), Miranda, Barbra, Susan, and Michael.

Photo 1: http://media.web.britannica.com/eb-media/49/91349-004-FD097B3B.jpg
Photo 2: http://www.luminousvisions.org/verona.jpg
Photo 3: http://alt.coxnewsweb.com/shared-blogs/austin/outandabout/upload/2009/12/his_subject_is/papp.jpg
Photo 4: http://nationaltheatre.org/mainstage/art/AChorusLine/traingle_250h.jpg