With vaccinations ongoing, and summer approaching, The Public Theater is joining other performance venues in New York to come to life with outdoor programming. Shakespeare in the Park will return to the Delacorte Theater beginning on Monday, July 5 for an 8-week run, with Jocelyn Bioh’s adaptation of The Merry Wives of Windsor. The exact performance schedule will be announced at a later date.
Shuttered last summer for the first time in its history, the last production played at the Delacorte in 2019. “We have spent the last year getting ready. We have been producing new work, and preparing a safe return. We’ve grieved, Zoomed, innovated, supported our communities, and connected our city,” the Public’s website reads.
This iteration of Merry Wives is a 12-actor, intermission-free version of the play, set in South Harlem. It reimagines Falstaff as an African-American seeking to woo two married women who live among a community of immigrants from West Africa.
The Public is working on the production in partnership with city officials, theatrical unions and health and safety experts. Considerations include how many people will be allowed to attend. Current state regulations allow for 500 virus-tested people to occupy the 2,000-seat theater. However, regulations may change before opening night. Other factors include mask-wearing, virus testing and treatment of the public areas of the theater.
The Public Theater in its announcement follows Lincoln Center, which will create 10 outdoor spaces for performance on its plaza, starting in April; and the Brooklyn Academy of Music and Playwrights Horizons, which hope to stage Aleshea Harris’s What to Send Up When It Goes Down in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden in June.
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