Shakespeare in the Park (New York City)

Originally branded as the New York Shakespeare Festival (NYSF) under the direction of Joseph Papp, the institution was renamed in 2002 as part of a larger reorganization by the Public Theater.

[2] In 1959, parks commissioner Robert Moses demanded that Papp and his company charge a fee for the performances to cover the cost of "grass erosion."

Non-Shakespeare productions have included plays such as Anton Chekhov's The Seagull and Henrik Ibsen's Peer Gynt and musicals such as On the Town, Into the Woods, Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, and Disney's Hercules, the latter three having made their world debuts at the Delacorte.

Despite the fact that the play is widely viewed as a cautionary tale against political violence,[6][7][8] right-wing activists objected to what they characterized as the murder of a stand-in for Trump and interrupted two performances.

In 2005, the theater company was among 406 New York City arts and social service institutions to receive part of a $20 million grant from the Carnegie Corporation, which was made possible through a donation by then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

The festival has also attracted many well-known actors, such as Meryl Streep, Morgan Freeman, Martin Sheen, and Al Pacino – the latter two of whom appeared as Brutus and Marc Antony in a toga-clad historical production of Julius Caesar, directed by Stuart Vaughan in 1987, in the first of the NYSF's Shakespeare Marathon.

Since its inception, the festival has become popular with both New York natives and visitors to the city, and while the Delacorte Theater has 1,872 seats, prospective theatergoers can expect to sit in line for hours before the early afternoon ticket distribution.