Delacorte Theater New York City Central Park building news, Shakespeare in the Park Manhattan Arts design

Delacorte Theater New York City Central Park

July 24, 2025

Address: 81 Central Park West, New York, NY 10024, United States of America.

Design: Ennead Architects

Ennead Architects Celebrates Revitalization of Delacorte Theater in New York City’s Central Park

Home to The Public Theater’s legendary Free Shakespeare in the Park, The Delacorte reopens its doors in celebration of the arts and the endurance of its communities.

Photos by Jeff Goldberg/Esto

Delacorte Theater Central Park Building News

New York, NY (July, 2025) – Renowned design firm Ennead Architects celebrated the official ribbon cutting of the newly revitalized Delacorte Theater, the legendary open-air home of The Public Theater’s Free Shakespeare in the Park. Located in the heart of Central Park, the endeavor marks the most significant renovation in the theater’s 63-year history. Ennead’s bold yet sensitive renovation introduces new levels of accessibility for attendees, staff, and performers alike, ensuring the beloved cultural destination will serve the city for generations to come. Guided by the firm’s signature focus on sustainability and resilience, the transformation deepens the theater’s connection to its natural setting and honors its singular standing in New York’s physical and cultural landscape.

“The Delacorte has long stood as a symbol of NYC’s soul—where culture, community, and nature live in harmony and memory lingers in the open air,” says Stephen Chu, Design Partner at Ennead Architects. “In reimagining this beloved experience, our goal was to distill decades of collective memory into a theater that feels both renewed and timeless. It rises from the landscape like a sculpted echo of the Park itself—crafted with care, shaped by intention, and built from the city’s own story. Using reclaimed redwood from 25 decommissioned water towers, we’ve woven the past into the future. A theater born of the fabric of NYC, returning to the people of NYC.”

Designing for Resilience

Nestled among the trees, the theater’s surroundings inform the design in every way. The new exterior enclosure is made of reclaimed redwood from decommissioned water towers sourced from all of New York’s five boroughs, with each piece of wood installed individually, grounding the space in both the natural landscape of the park and broader urban context. The vertical textured wood façade is canted slightly outward to create a sense of movement, playing with light and shadow to evoke the natural beauty of the surrounding environment. The rugged texture of the exterior wall contrasts the smooth, dynamic geometry of the new covered canopy, sweeping across the entryway to cultivate an experience that balances subtlety and grandeur.

The reclaimed redwood serves both an aesthetic and functional purpose, creating a dynamic visual identity that will wear well over time and minimize heat retention. Given the unpredictability of summer weather, Ennead incorporated heightened water protection and drainage systems to reduce flooding and improve water mitigation in anticipation of worsening storms. Wood paneling lines the entryway, ushering you into the space that gracefully opens to the sky, effortlessly setting the stage for a truly one-of-a-kind theatrical experience.

An Elevated Experience for All

Ennead’s design considers the experience of every person in the theater: performers, audience, and staff alike. Two new gates provide accessible entries, and a generous cross aisle with excellent sightlines ensures an equitable visual experience for everyone moving throughout the space. Two new ramps for audience members and both a ramp and a lift allow for artists with disabilities to enter and exit the stage with ease. The number of ADA accessible seats has more than doubled, along with the introduction of 20 bariatric seats and wider seats overall.

From a technical perspective, many back-of-house investments were made to improve the staff and artist experience for both safety and ease of operation. Purpose-built dressing rooms, expanded hallways, and HVAC climate control for enclosed spaces bring a new level of comfort to the space, allowing performers to relax and focus before, during, and after the production. New lighting towers provide opportunities to transform the visual experience, and the canted exterior wall allows for an additional row of seating. Upgraded exterior and interior wayfinding signage encourages intuitive movement throughout the space that eliminates bottlenecking upon entry and exit.

“The revitalization of The Delacorte isn’t just an upgrade; it’s a profound commitment to the future of free theater in Central Park. Stephen and the Ennead team are the most valuable of partners —those who share a belief in the power of our mission—and, together, we’ve transformed this iconic space into a more comfortable, sustainable, and welcoming environment for everyone who believes culture belongs to every New Yorker,” said Patrick Willingham, Executive Director of The Public Theater. “We can’t wait to open our doors on August 7 with the first performance of Free Shakespeare in the Park, to celebrate with our friends on and offstage, greet new and returning artists alike and inaugurate this revitalized space.”

Ennead has a long-standing partnership with The Public. Centered around a long-term master plan, Ennead has been designing and executing multi-phased improvements to The Public’s flagship location on Lafayette Street, creating a new rehearsal hall annex and now completing the revitalization of the Delacorte. The Delacorte will reopen with a production of Twelfth Night, directed by Saheem Ali, in August. The cast features Public Theater alumni Khris Davis, Peter Dinklage, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Lupita Nyong’o, Sandra Oh, and Daphne Rubin-Vega and Public debuts b, Junior Nyong’o, and Moses Sumney.

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Ennead Architects

Renowned for its innovative cultural, educational, scientific, commercial, and civic building designs that authentically express the progressive missions of their institutions and enhance the vitality of the public realm, Ennead Architects has been a leader in the design world for decades. The recipient of the prestigious Smithsonian Institution-Cooper Hewitt National Design Award, the AIANY Medal of Honor, and the National AIA Firm Award, as well as numerous design awards for individual buildings, Ennead has a body of work that is diverse in typology, scale, and location. The firm’s collaborative process is based in extensive research involving the analysis of context, program, public image, emerging technologies, and a commitment to sustainable solutions. www.ennead.com.

Free Shakespeare in the Park

Since its inception, over six million people have enjoyed more than 160 free productions of Shakespeare and other classical works and musicals at The Delacorte Theater. Conceived by founder Joseph Papp to make great theater accessible to all, Free Shakespeare in the Park continues to be the bedrock of The Public’s vision of artistic excellence and free access to culture.

The Public has launched “Forever Public,” an ambitious, multi-year capital campaign with a goal of raising over $175 million to secure the transformative mission of free theater for everyone. In addition to establishing the Fund for Free Theater endowment, Forever Public provided capital support to make the Delacorte revitalization possible.

Built in 1962, the theater had not undergone meaningful capital upgrades since 1999. The Public, in partnered with the Central Park Conservancy, NYC Parks, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, and Ennead Architects to create a design and construction plan that minimized impact on Central Park and foregrounded resilience and sustainability to ensure the longevity of Free Shakespeare in the Park for many years to come.

Following groundbreaking in October 2023, reconstruction of interior spaces and the grandstand layout began with subsequent installation of redesigned lighting towers and the new wood façade made from salvaged NYC water towers. Concurrently, the Central Park Conservancy is renovating the Delacorte Restroom, slated for completion alongside the theater renovation. Reopening to visitors this summer, the revitalized Delacorte offers a state-of-the-art experience for audiences, artists, and staff alike with improved access for people living with disabilities.

The Delacorte project is publicly and privately funded with $42 million contributed by the New York City Mayor, City Council, and Manhattan Borough President, as well as $1 million from New York Assembly Member O’Donnell. The Public also wishes to acknowledge State Senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal and NYC Parks who have contributed funding to the Central Park Conservancy’s Delacorte restroom renovation project.

The Public Theater

The Public Theater continues the work of its visionary founder Joe Papp as a civic institution engaging, both on-stage and off, with some of the most important ideas and social issues of today. Conceived over 60 years ago as one of the nation’s first nonprofit theaters, The Public has long operated on the principles that theater is an essential cultural force and that art and culture belong to everyone.

Under the leadership of Artistic Director Oskar Eustis and Executive Director Patrick Willingham, The Public’s wide breadth of programming includes an annual season of new work at its landmark home at Astor Place, Free Shakespeare in the Park at The Delacorte Theater in Central Park, the Mobile Unit touring throughout New York City’s five boroughs, Public Lab, Public Works, Public Shakespeare Initiative, and Joe’s Pub. Since premiering HAIR in 1967, The Public continues to create the canon of American Theater and is currently represented on Broadway by the Tony Award-winning musicals Hamilton by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Hell’s Kitchen by Alicia Keys and Kristoffer Diaz.

Their programs and productions can also be seen regionally across the country and around the world. The Public has received 64 Tony Awards, 195 Obie Awards, 62 Drama Desk Awards, 64 Lortel Awards, 36 Outer Critic Circle Awards, 13 New York Drama Critics’ Circle Awards, 70 AUDELCO Awards, 6 Antonyo Awards, and 6 Pulitzer Prizes. publictheater.org

The Public Theater stands in honor of the first inhabitants and our ancestors. We acknowledge the land on which The Public and its theaters stand—the original homeland of the Lenape people—and the painful history of genocide and forced removal from this territory. We honor the generations of stewards, and we pay our respects to the many diverse Indigenous peoples still connected to this land.

The Public also gives our respect to the people of Seneca Village, a community of Black property owners who were removed from their land and whose village was destroyed in the creation of Central Park. We recognize the sacrifice that these ancestors made and honor Seneca Village’s legacy.

Ennead Architects

Photos by Jeff Goldberg/Esto

Delacorte Theater New York City Central Park building images / information received 230725

Capacity: 1,800

Opened: 1962

Phone: +1 212-967-7555

Location: 81 Central Prk W, New York City, NY 10024, USA

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