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.
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Famous quotes related to early life:
“Many a woman shudders ... at the terrible eclipse of those intellectual powers which in early life seemed prophetic of usefulness and happiness, hence the army of martyrs among our married and unmarried women who, not having cultivated a taste for science, art or literature, form a corps of nervous patients who make fortunes for agreeable physicians ...”
—Sarah M. Grimke (1792–1873)