As You Like It (The Public) NYC Reviews and Tickets
Show-Score Member Reviews (29)
See it if Enchanting musical take on a Shakespearean gender switching, love and lots of weddings - wonderful fun but not for purists
Don't see it if You need your Shakespeare straight and sober
See it if You are looking for a joyful, magical experience that celebrates community
Don't see it if You're a Shakespeare purist looking for a straight interpretation
See it if you love NYC. This is community/professional theater at its best in the greatest theater space in the City. Spend the time in the line.
Don't see it if "you hate lines", are a purist about Shakespeare, hate Central Park, can't sit for 140 minutes without intermission. Your loss!
See it if Just see it!! A beautiful heartwarming production.
Don't see it if You are expecting a classic interpretation of Shakespeare.
See it if You enjoy good singing, dancing and dialogue under the night sky at the Delacourt theater in Central Park.
Don't see it if Can’t think of why you wouldn’t enjoy it!
See it if enjoy a joyful musical Shakespeare interpretation that has a cast of 100's. Great spectacle complete with appropriate prose
Don't see it if you prefer a strict interpretation of the Bard's work
See it if The best yet of the Delacorte Labor Day "pageants." Shaina Taub wrote a great score and plays an amusing Jaques. The other leads are good
Don't see it if Eye-popping staging with well choreographed troupes of dancers, acrobats and children. Animal puppets were great. The giant lion was awesome Read more
See it if Public Works productions in the Park are an annual delight. Mixed professional and amateur performers, all having a great time. Celebratory
Don't see it if You like your theater indoors, humorless and "respectful" of the the Classics. Read more
Critic Reviews (5)
"Rollicking, poignant and flat-out delightful...At about 100 minutes, it is a brief and generous respite from floods and nukes and violent demonstrations...What makes 'As You Like It' so thrilling is that when the cast is all assembled, it looks like New York City — busy, diverse, terrifically vital...For the optimistic, they are reminders that theater, like democracy, is a collaborative form and that when all those disparate voices come together, the effect can be extraordinary."
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“The story leaps off the stage with sizzling choreography by Sonya Tayeh, the tenderest of vocal arrangements by Shaina Taub and playful direction by Laurie Woolery…It’s wonderful to see the way the Public’s productions in Central Park bring the ideal of the public park into the show…It is an incredible ensemble of diverse and intriguing faces that is gathered for this production emphasizing this community feeling…You can take your kids to this show and they have a good time.”
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"I found this ‘As You Like It’ to be solid entertainment, thanks largely to its spectacular pageantry. In part because of its scale, it isn’t the most subtly rendered version of the story you’re ever likely to see. Its humor runs to the broad (and sometimes self-referential), rather than to the thoughtful and understated. Still, the rapt audience clearly found it winning.”
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"An inspiring rendition...The play briefly covers the romance that ensues between Rosalind and Orlando. Had there been more scenes showing the growing affection for one another, the characters’ chemistry might have appeared stronger. The songs and lyrics were standouts in this work...This adaptation succeeded in bringing Shakespeare’s play about conflict, drama, hope, and life’s inevitable adversities, to life on stage."
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"A thrilling array of our city’s vibrant population is singing, dancing, speechifying, and wrestling up on the stage...What Public Works participants lack in polish and training, they make up for in sheer, unadulterated joy...The presence of such a large and radiant ensemble has a democratizing effect in more ways than one...It can’t be easy to stage so many bodies. Most of the time Woolery made it work, making those instances where the staging doesn’t flow seamlessly stand out all the more."
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