Word: papp
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...Joseph Papp wants to do is produce Shakespearean plays in Manhattan's Central Park and let people watch them for nothing. Such an ambition would seem to be about as controversial as sunshine, but Papp is forever warring against enormous odds, standing his ground in a swirl of controversy. The first big odd was former Parks Commissioner Robert Moses, who insisted that Shakespearean audiences were eroding the city's soil. But Moses departed. Papp hung on, and last week Papp proudly presided over the dedication of a $400,000 amphitheater in the middle of Central Park...
...simultaneously, Papp found himself in another cauldron. As the new theater's dedicatory play, he had picked The Merchant of Venice-and the New York Board of Rabbis loudly protested. In the part of Shylock, said the rabbis, Shakespeare had perpetrated "a distortion and defamation of our people and our faith.'' Through WCBS-TV, the entire city would have a chance to see the performance, and that was what bothered the rabbis most. "The television audience will be a mass audience," they argued. "It will include impressionable young people and teenagers, and many of its adults would...
Without advertising, Papp said he his audience on the Lower East Side and added to it by touring New York high schools, including the rough "Many of these people never saw a play before," Papp observed, "and we have a tremendous obligation to make sure that their first play had some value." "Creeping Amateurism" a Danger Ridiculing Secretary of Labor Arthurberg's statistics on the great number performing organizations in the United States, Papp declared: "The greatest danger in the theater is creeping amateurism. We must produce at a high professional level, especially if we seek government funds. The whole...
...Faine, national executive secretary of the American Guild of Musical Artists, objected to Papp's pessimism on getting federal aid, and predicted that Congress will establish a Federal Advisory Council on the Arts...
...problem of censorship, Faine agreed with Papp that receiving tax money would not increase attempts at control. "Grants to the arts would function under the same political climate as the rest of the country," Papp said. "There are always attempts to intimidate, dictate, and control even when you don't receive money. But if you develop a public, you become strong and can fight off censorship and enrich our democracy...