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.