By Adam Hetrick
03 Nov 2009

"Free for All: Joe Papp, The Public, and the Greatest Theater Story Ever Told," a once-shelved oral history of one of America's most influential arts organizations and its founder, arrives in book stores Nov. 3.

Los Angeles Times critic and National Public Radio contributor Kenneth Turan authors the 638-page Doubleday book, which was created from a series of interviews with and about late Public Theater (originally the New York Shakespeare Festival) founder Joseph Papp.

The project began in 1986 and includes interviews with Papp collaborators and contemporaries including David Hare, Meryl Streep, Madeline Kahn, Bob Fosse, Raul Julia, David Rabe, Larry Kramer, George C. Scott, Mike Nichols, Kevin Kline, James Earl Jones, Jerry Stiller, Tommy Lee Jones and Wallace Shawn.

Papp originally expressed his displeasure with the first draft and refused to allow Turan to publish the book. Years after Papp's death, a devastated Turan contacted Papp's widow, Gail Merrifield Papp, to see if there was a way forward to bring this historic account to the public. With her blessing, Turan returned to the project a few years ago.

In his introduction, Turan says the following about the project: "As I worked on a new draft, I increasingly felt the powerful responsibility I had to the people who had talked to me at such length. All alone in the woods, I sometimes found myself literally in tears at the thought of the people, Joe first among them, who had been painfully honest about the most significant events of their lives and counted on me to relay their last testament to the world. For roughly 40 of the voices in this book, one out of every four, has died in the two decades since I did the interviewing. No one else will be hearing their stories from their lips, and to read this book is to re-enter as if by magic a moment in history ripe for rediscovery and amazement."

Founded by Papp in 1954 as the New York Shakespeare Festival, the Public Theater officially moved into its current residence on Astor Place in 1967. The acclaimed organization has won 42 Tony Awards, 149 Obies, 40 Drama Desk Awards, 24 Lucille Lortel Awards and 4 Pulitzer Prizes. Among its notable Broadway productions are Hair; A Chorus Line; Take Me Out; Caroline, or Change; Passing Strange; That Championship Season; The Pirates of Penzance; Elaine Stritch at Liberty; The Water Engine; The Mystery of Edwin Drood; Bring in 'Da Noise, Bring in ‘Da Funk; On the Town; The Human Comedy; The Ride Down Mt. Morgan; Topdog/Underdog; Well; The Wild Party and Sticks and Bones. Oskar Eustis is the current artistic director of the Public, with Andrew D. Hamingson as executive director.

Turan is the author of "Never Coming to a Theater Near You," "Now in Theaters Everywhere," "Sinema" and "Sundance to Sarajevo."

To celebrate the long-awaited release of "The Greatest Theater Story Ever Told," Turan will sign copies of the book at the Lincoln Triangle Barnes and Noble Nov. 5 at 7:30 PM.