Early Life
Papp was born Joseph Papirofsky in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Yetta (née Miritch), a seamstress, and Samuel Papirofsky, a trunkmaker. His parents were Jewish immigrants from Russia. He was a high school student of Harlem Renaissance playwright Eulalie Spence. Papp founded the New York Shakespeare Festival in 1954, with the aim of making Shakespeare's works accessible to the public. In 1957, he was granted the use of Central Park for free productions of Shakespeare's plays. This legacy of Papp has continued (through 2010) at the open-air Delacorte Theatre every summer in Central Park.
Read more about this topic: Joseph Papp
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“On the Coast of Coromandel
Where the early pumpkins blow,
In the middle of the woods
Lived the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo.
Two old chairs, and half a candle,—
One old jug without a handle,—
These were all his worldly goods:
In the middle of the woods,”
—Edward Lear (1812–1888)
“The animal is one with its life activity. It does not distinguish the activity from itself. It is its activity. But man makes his life activity itself an object of his will and consciousness. He has a conscious life activity. It is not a determination with which he is completely identified.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)