WHEN Oskar Eustis was 17, he auditioned for a role in “Henry V” at the Public Theater for founder Joseph Papp.
He didn’t get the part, and it would be his last audition ever. “Joseph was nice about it,” recalls Eustis, who realized that day he wasn’t meant to be an actor.
Now 47, Eustis has been the artistic director for the Public Theater since 2004, and is throwing a star-studded, song-and-dance fete at New York City Center on Monday to celebrate the 50th anniversary – marked to the year Papp founded the Shakespeare Workshop, which evolved into the Public Theater.
“Our goal is to have no speaking, speeches, at all,” he says of the tribute to musicals.
The show, directed by James Lapine, includes performances by Betty Buckley, Savion Glover, Eartha Kitt, Meryl Streep, Elaine Stritch and others.
“It is full of performers doing things you wouldn’t expect them to do,” says Eustis. “The consistent pattern is to slam together different pieces from different eras and have them interpreted and performed by artists you don’t expect to be doing them.”
Perhaps Glover would do “Let the Sunshine In” from “Hair,” for example – but it’s all hush-hush.
“The idea is to not only give a taste of the individual shows, but also to help define the essence of what Pubic Theater musical was,” Eustis explains. “As different as they all are, they were all responding to history and the moment in time and the life of the country.”
In the turbulent year of 1967, then-controversial “Hair” opened the Public’s first season at its current space, the former Astor Library on Lafayette Street, and helped define the tone of what would be the home of hundreds of musicals and dramas.
Since then, the Public Theater’s performances, which also include “Shakespeare in the Park” in Central Park’s Delacorte Theater, have won 40 Tony Awards, 135 Obies, 38 Drama Desk Awards and four Pulitzer Prizes. It’s brought 49 shows to Broadway, including the singular sensation “A Chorus Line.”
The Public launched Glover’s career with “Bring in ‘Da Noise, Bring in ‘Da Funk” and staged one great lady of the theater’s comeback with “Elaine Stritch at Liberty.”
Continuing in the tradition of the theater’s early years, it’s still heavy on workshops – giving directors and performers a place to help find their footing and develop shows.
That was how “A Chorus Line” kicked off. Director Michael Bennett asked Papp to borrow a room for a month where he could interview dancers about their lives and auditions. Eventually, says Eustis, “Michael just drew a line down the center of the room and said, ‘That’s our set.’
“It’s a perfect example of how theaters can create shows that wouldn’t have existed without them,” he adds. Eartha Kitt developed and opened the musical “The Wild Party” at the Public, working with longtime artistic director George C. Wolfe.
“It gives young people who want to be in the theater the opportunity to exercise their desires,” says Eartha Kitt, singer, actress and Catwoman. “I’m grateful to Joseph Papp for that.”
Kitt finds inspiration in such intimate venues.
“You can feel the reaction from the audience immediately, even when they’re not applauding. You can feel what they are feeling, and that’s what gives me the creative ability to go on,” she says.
Earlier this year, the Public celebrated its dramatic heritage with a series of readings.
“We needed a big show for the musicals. You can’t do a reading of musicals,” says Eustis. “But honestly, we wanted one really big party and this is the best way to do it.”