Last night, Central Park’s landmark Delacorte Theater reopened after a two-year renovation closure, returning the Public Theater’s Free Shakespeare in the Park program to five boroughs full of expectant audiences.
The Delacorte has long been a north star for thespians—try to count how many of your actor friends on Instagram have liked that one photo of Meryl Streep rehearsing Taming of the Shrew there in 1978. But things had gotten rickety: leaky bleachers, virtually no air conditioning, accessibility issues, outdated machinery, and the constant threat of a raccoon takeover meant an upgrade was necessary.
Architect Stephen Chu fixed all those issues while crafting a new facade that seems to rise up from the earth. He also figured out an ingenious workaround to a problem posed by the Public’s longtime artistic director, Oskar Eustis, who wanted redwood for the new theater: it’s illegal to cut down the non-native giants, and construction had to utilize New York wood, so Chu repurposed 25 decommissioned city water tanks into stunning tongue-and-groove paneling. And while the Public has cheekily leaned into its resident critters—recently announcing Romeo the Raccoon as its Delacorte mascot—a new cinder-block partition helps keep them at bay.
Thursday night’s performance—of director Saheem Ali’s new production of Twelfth Night—felt truly special, all the more so because its sprawling cast includes Sandra Oh, Peter Dinklage, Moses Sumney, and both Lupita and her brother Junior Nyong’o, whom Ali met back in their native Nairobi. That Delacorte north star also pulled some illustrious others into its orbit, like Sufjan Stevens (!), Jim Parsons, Constance Wu, and Morgan Spector, as well as recent co-stars Aubrey Plaza and Christopher Abbott. Others in attendance included Wendell Pierce, Ali Stroker, Billy Crudup, Ruthie Ann Miles, Leslie Odom Jr., and Micaela Jae Rodriguez.
In a moving pre-show speech, Eustis noted that he had just landed from England. One night earlier, the Public’s Ali-directed production of Fat Ham had opened at the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon, making the Kenyan director a de facto leader of the Bard’s legacy.
As the likes of Stephanie Hsu, Padma Lakshmi, Tramell Tillman, and Christian Slater applauded the performance’s finale, two DJs hyped up an after-party on the adjacent lawn, where Alex Edelman, Susan Kelechi Watson, Nikki M. James, Ben Platt, and Noah Galvin maneuvered through some rain-soaked patches.
Below, a handful of Twelfth Night castmates and Delacorte veterans share their opening night feelings with Vogue—as well as their favorite Shakespeare in the Park memories.
“The first show I ever directed was Grease, after I saw a London production and fell in love with the musical. I went back home, wrote the script from memory, and got my high school friends to perform in it. Someone from a local theater saw it and asked if I wanted to be in a production of Romeo and Juliet with Lupita. She was 14 and Juliet, I was 17 and Mercutio. But no one knew it meant that much to me.”
“I mean, he ate up that role, so I beg to differ. We were friendly back then, but it wasn’t until we reconnected in New York, when he was at Columbia and I was at Yale, that we became inseparable. Now I see everything he does. I have his ear and love to give him notes, so this is his revenge, him giving me notes.”
“I feel like Saheem has always been around, because they’ve been friends for so long. I think Fat Ham is my favorite of his productions, but I haven’t seen Buena Vista Social Club, so that could change.”
“I’d never been to the Delacorte, so when Saheem asked me, I said no, because I didn’t think I could do Shakespeare. I felt, I know my place, I’m very fresh to acting. I had to draw it out of myself. From my castmates I’ve learned how to actually feel my feelings. When I perform [my music], I do it in a very contained environment that I control, so it’s very easy being in touch with my feelings at my show. Here, you’re not in control; it’s the text, the room.”
“If you’ve been to Shakespare in the Park before, then you know why actors love it. It’s the absolute beauty of being in the open air, and the audiences that come here are the most invested audiences.
I get so much joy from being onstage. The opportunity has opened up and now I’m absolutely following it. And also, like, it took me 30 years to get on this stage. I’m not saying no. And if I have the opportunity, I’m going to take it.”
“Twelfth Night’s a story of love, so I’m wearing Trans Punk Closet, which is an organization that upcycles old costumes from shows that they do and donate them to trans artists who need it. My character’s a loverboy, so I got some heart pins made of broken jewelry, and I wanted a zoot suit to pay homage to my mom, who’s Mexican-American.”
“I was nine or ten when I first came with my mom—I wanna say it was Pirates of Penzance with Kevin Kline—and I had to pee so bad. It taught me early on to go to the bathroom before you see Shakespeare in the Park. I’m feeling blessed that my first one is the first one with AC. And, actually, because my part of the dressing room is the one with the AC blowing directly on me.”
“So apparently there was air conditioning for the actors’ dressing rooms, but not in the hallways, or anywhere else backstage. But when it’s 69 degrees inside, and then 96 right outside…”
“We canceled because of rain the other night and it was barely misting. In my day, we would have done it until it downpoured on us. Comedy of Errors we did, basically in a downpour. The only reason we did it was because the rain fried the sound system, so they couldn’t even get on the PA to tell us to leave the stage, so we just kept going. It was awesome.”
“The dressing rooms were pretty gnarly, but I was so happy to be there that I didn’t notice. As an actor, you play in a million not-renovated dressing rooms. This is the coolest job in New York. As a comedian, you think, I could never, but then you squeak in here and can’t believe it.”
“My character made her entrance on the hydraulic lift, and it had been raining since about 6 p.m. that night—and the audience stayed. They had to squeegee that stage until it was dry, but then I heard the orchestra playing, and as soon as those doors opened, about two gallons of water dumped on my head; leaves, water, all of it. And then Jesse [Tyler Ferguson] makes his entrance, takes a look at me, and bursts out laughing.”
“I thought it was fantastic when I performed here. I think they might have made it more handicap-accessible, which is a good thing. I wish the subways would take a cue and do the same thing. But I loved being here. I’m not a critical person… usually.”
“I have a fear of birds. So if I played here and one landed onstage in the middle of a monologue, I’m sorry, the show is over, I’m home in 30 seconds flat. Ever since the Alfred Hitchcock movie, I don’t need them flapping in my face like that.”
“There’s no bad experience here! Rain, bugs, those are all good. Anything that turns everything on its head is a thrill. I’m not always this upbeat, but it is true.”
“I busted my ass on the stage because it had just rained, and we decided to proceed with the show. Every night, I thought, Wow, you’re doing so well, you’re doing all these flips. Then, during ‘One Last Hope,’ I did a toe-touch and came down, boom, and then I got up and got right back into that kickline.”