
By Bonnie Eissner
For everyone who pined for free Shakespeare in Central Park last summer while the Delacorte Theater was shuttered for an $80 million renovation, and who missed The Public Theater’s traveling production of “The Comedy of Errors,” there’s welcome news.
The Delacorte will reopen next August with a production of “Twelfth Night,” starring Lupita Nyong’o, Peter Dinklage, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, and Sandra Oh. And audience members and artists can expect greater comfort, more accessibility, and more beauty.
That was the message from Patrick Willingham, executive director of The Public Theater, which produces Shakespeare in the Park, and Francelle Lim, a principal at Ennead Architects, the firm that designed the renovation. Willingham and Lim hosted a tour of the construction site last Thursday and offered a preview of what’s to come.

Since opening 62 years ago, the Delacorte has been the cherished home of free Shakespeare in the Park, just as its creator Joe Papp intended. Playwright Tony Kushner called the rustic amphitheater, with its green, flip-up seats and creaking wooden floorboards, “a borderland between the natural world and the world of dreams.”
“There isn’t any more magical spot to do theater,” actor Sam Waterston told The New York Times in 2012, after 10 performances at the Delacorte.
But that place of magic, host to over 5 million visitors over the years, had, like King Lear, been showing its age and frailty.
Actors dodged raindrops and puddles as they navigated to the stage from leaky backstage areas. In the off-season, raccoons moved in, depositing the debris from their meals (turtles) and munching on electrical wires. Cast and crew members sweltered with patchy, makeshift air conditioning, and much of the theater was inaccessible for artists and audience members with disabilities.

The renovation is both structural and aesthetic. The intention, said Willingham, is to “create a space that feels elevated in a way that says you’re coming to this venue for free to see the best directors, the best artists, the best designers, the best work in the Western canon,” and, he added, to deliver the best theater experience.
Just about every element of the theater except the underlying structure will be new, Willingham said. In addition to creating an inspiring and accessible “palace for the people,” as Oscar Eustis, artistic director of The Public Theater, calls the Delacorte, the design team prioritized sustainability and durability, Willingham explained.
Willingham told the story of when he first joined The Public 13 years ago; he overheard a New Yorker in Central Park walking past the Delacorte with a friend from out of town. The friend pointed to the modest, circular structure and asked if it was a baseball stadium. “One of the things we really wanted to do was to deliver something that looks and feels much more like a theater,” he said.
Several elements of the redesign should achieve that aim.

The theater’s façade, formerly brown cedar siding, will consist of intricately patterned redwood that’s been sourced from decommissioned city water towers. The differently sized redwood planks will add dynamism to the exterior, Willingham explained. As the wood weathers, it will turn from reddish brown to gray.
While the footprint of the theater will remain the same, the outer walls will be cantilevered to allow for a new row of seats. The seat count of 1,871 will remain pretty much the same, but the seats will be larger and more comfortable; and many more (34) will accommodate people with disabilities.
The modest canopy ringing the theater, where audience members huddled in the rain, will be extended to 18 feet from the façade near the box office. The concept is to create a sense of a theater lobby, said Willingham.
Bluestone paving will surround the theater and line two of the four entrances to the seating area. The other two audience entrances will be wheelchair-accessible ramps.
The seats will remain green, but the theater’s former pine flooring, painted battleship gray, will be replaced by Kebony, a sustainably sourced, treated wood that will weather naturally to gray and last longer than the pine. Think of a handsome porch or deck. The Hudson River Park Trust used Kebony in its ecologically themed redesign of Pier 26 in Tribeca. Previously, about 20% of the pine decking had to be replaced every year, eating up time and money, Willingham said.

Oh, and the nearby park bathrooms are getting a fortuitously timed upgrade from the Central Park Conservancy. The women’s bathroom will get 11 new stalls, alleviating intermission lines that ate up second acts.
Like the audience, cast and crew members can look forward to meaningful improvements. The concession stands and backstage areas, which are located under the seats, will at last be sealed off from the elements by a layer of corrugated steel overhead.
In a nod to oppressive summer heat and climate change, the backstage areas will be fully air-conditioned.
Actors will have five new dressing rooms, three of which will be wheelchair accessible, as well as accessible, gender-neutral bathrooms and two showers, one of which will be wheelchair accessible.

As for the raccoons, a low cinderblock wall — dubbed the raccoon wall — that surrounds the stage underneath the seats is designed to keep their backstage visits to a minimum. Onstage, “they are our stars,” Willingham said, “but they shouldn’t be in our dressing rooms.”
In the center of the back row of the theater sits the control booth, which will be fully renovated, and accessible by an elevator. The lift, Willingham said, “is truly one of the things I’m most proud of, and I think is most emblematic of the level of concern and care that we put into this space, ensuring that it serves everybody.”
In a similar vein, a new ramp extending from backstage to the stage will enable artists with disabilities to get onstage independently, without relying on a lift, which exists, Willingham said, but is more vulnerable to the elements and typically requires assistance to use.
Toward the end of the tour, as Willingham gathered the visitors onstage to take in the transforming amphitheater, he offered one final note about watching performances in the new Delacorte.

“One of the things we were really aware of was [it] ain’t gonna get much better,” he said. “The sky is above you. The raccoons are on the stage. The moon’s there. There are birds flying past. You’re seeing these incredible productions. Belvedere Castle…is beautifully in the background.”
We’ve tried to slightly elevate that experience, he added, “and not get at all in the way of what free Shakespeare in the Park is about, which is sitting in the middle of Central Park, in the middle of nature, and having this incredible theatrical experience.”
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Can’t wait! So glad they respected the original. (Too bad they can’t block out the hideous supertalls that mar the once-bucolic view out over the stage.)
August?!?!?! Why not July?
I too am very excited, but not sure I get the welcoming of racoons anywhere – aren’t they a real health risk???
Will there be a new mechanism for getting tickets so that those of us who can’t afford to spend the entire day on line can get in?
At least in the past there’s been a digital lottery (I’ve never won, but I know people who have!). Details as follows:
“In partnership with TodayTix, the Public Theater offers an exclusive digital lottery for Free Shakespeare in the Park. Tickets are assigned by random draw on the TodayTix app on each date that there is a public performance at the Delacorte Theater. You can enter the lottery for 1 or 2 tickets between midnight to noon on the day of the show; if you win, you’ll be notified between noon and 3 pm, and you must confirm your tickets through the app within 30 minutes. Winners can pick up their tickets at the Delacorte between 5:30 pm and 7:30 pm (the shows begin at 8 pm); tickets that have not been claimed by 7:30 pm get forfeited to the standby line.”
That’s an amazing cast (and reno too of course). Thanks for the update!
Take a bow, Public Theater! You’ve created a model of sustainability and accessibility for decades to come. Should be a model for outdoor amphitheaters far and wide.
This article was such a pleasure to read. It is so wonderful what is happening with the theater.
It certainly was!😀👏 Many thanks to Bonnie Eissner for her excellent in-depth research and reporting on the landmark redesign, which sounds brilliant, inspired, and amazing! I had been wondering what was happening behind the barriers; hats off to Patrick Willingham, Francelle Lim, and everyone involved–including the industrious workers on-site! I look forward to the August premiere!