About the Show

A new outdoor staging of Shakespeare's romance about jealousy, a lost princess, and redemption after sixteen years.

The Winter's Tale follows Leontes, King of Sicilia, whose unfounded conviction that his pregnant wife has been unfaithful sets off a chain of tragic consequences. The newborn princess is smuggled away and abandoned on the coast of Bohemia, where she is found by a shepherd and raised as Perdita. Sixteen years later, Perdita falls in love with a young man who proves to be a prince in disguise, setting the play's two halves — separated by time, geography, and tone — on a course toward reckoning and reunion.

Directed by Tony Award-winning director Daniel Sullivan, the production is presented as part of The Public Theater's Free Shakespeare in the Park programme in Central Park, with choreography by Mimi Lieber. Sullivan returns to the outdoor series with a play that moves between tragedy and romance, using the distance of sixteen years to examine jealousy, loss, and the possibility of restoration.

Critic Reviews (10)

"It is almost impossible to sympathize with a character who does such harm so baselessly. And as Esparza plays him, it is almost impossible not to."
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"You'd have to be made of stone to be unmoved by this cautionary tale that saves space for hope. We need it in any season."
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"When it comes to Shakespeare, Sullivan is competent and unadventurous… it doesn't spark. Despite its title, this is a play full of heat — yet on the Delacorte stage, it feels chilly and underenergized, a bear that's a little too close to torpor."
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"Her seraphic gaze alone is enough to embody Shakespeare's dramatization of art as a tool for empathy and forgiveness."
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"The Winter's Tale is a cracking good story, ending in a vision of forgiveness and renewal that couldn't be more welcome right now."
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"Riveting three hour and 20 minutes uncut production is a pure staging, gimmick and update free"
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Lily Rabe is remarkable as Hermione, a woman who undergoes many shifts over the course of a show that revels in its messiness in ways that both captivate and frustrate. ★★★☆☆
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Tony Award winner Daniel Sullivan stages his 12th Shakespeare play at the Delacorte Theater with a star-studded cast.
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