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Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline, Suzan-Lori Parks and Oskar Eustis participated in a panel discussion held at the Ford Center on Wednesday, October 26. The panel was held in conjunction with an advance screening of the film “Joe Papp in Five Acts” by Tracie Holder and Karen Thorsen.
The screening was covered by the New York Times with a very interesting article on Meryl’s first audition for Papp’s Public Theater: Fresh out of the Yale School of Drama in 1975, Meryl Streep was 90 minutes late for her first audition with Joseph Papp, the artistic director of the Public Theater and the New York Shakespeare Festival in Central Park. Her train from New Haven had been delayed, and there were, of course, no cellphones or e-mail then. She arrived to find Papp sitting in one of his signature white suits, his impatience conveyed with a grimace and twitchy crossed-leg kicks. Yet a few minutes later, the potential of a great actress had transformed his mood, and soon he was offering a small role to Ms. Streep in what would be her Broadway debut: “Trelawny of the ‘Wells’” at the Vivian Beaumont Theater, in an era when acting work in New York was hard to find. The complete article can be read here.
