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NYC is constantly changing. So how do you capture its essence onstage at this particular moment? That's what an ambitious new performance called Public Record starring 100 everyday New Yorkers aims to do, and you can see it for free at Central Park's Delacorte Theater this Labor Day weekend.
Produced by Public Works, a civic-minded initiative of The Public Theater that builds community through art, Public Record is markedly different from the program's previous productions, which were mostly musical adaptations of classics. For Public Record, participants plucked from Public Works' community partners around the five boroughs will not only be performing, they'll also be sharing their own personal stories in front of 1,800 of their NYC neighbors.
Conceived by UK-based multidisciplinary artists Emily Lim and Dan Canham, this is the second iteration of Public Record after its inaugural edition last year in Sunderland, England. For that version, they collaborated with locals and a handful of professional musicians to create a live 12-track album onstage in real time that reflected the spirit of that city. Of course, Sunderland has a population of about 300,000, a fraction of NYC's. Lim says expanding this grand endeavor to the Big Apple is "pushing the boundaries of what community-centered devised work can be."
"Public Record is a riff on the idea of what it is to own and document and record your identity as a community," Lim explains. Each section has an expansive theme—e.g., Birth Certificate, Love Song, Sounds of the City, Here and Now, Tribute Act—that embraces a multitude of perspectives and musical genres. "It plays with forms and allows us to bring together people from across the city and brilliant guest artists in one big celebration of place and identity."
Over the past 13 months, Lim, Canham and Pablo Hernandez Basulto, The Public Theater's Director of Civic Artistic Programs, have been working with constituents from nine organizations to craft the NYC edition of Public Works. Participants range in age from 7 to 84 and include mature adults from the Brownsville Recreation Center, kids from Children’s Aid and Hunts Point Alliance for Children, formerly incarcerated individuals from The Fortune Society, immigrant activists from Domestic Workers United, and veterans and their families from the Military Resilience Foundation.
While there was an audition process—265 tried out for 100 slots—the creators focused on personality and diversity, not autobiography. "We didn't ask, 'What's your story?'" Canham says. "We trusted that everyone has a story. We've had a really thorough, many-pronged approach to working with the company to fill in that material."
That included calling in some pros: Lisa Sanaye Dring (SUMO) is the playwright curating the text and songwriter-orchestrator Michael Thurber (Goddess) is overseeing all the music, while Canham takes on choreography and co-directs with Lim. Guest artists include Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra founder Arturo O’Farrill, the art and music collective Papi Juice, violinist Arun Ramamurthy, deejay and singer Maya Margarita, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert bandleader Louis Cato, Latin Grammy winner Mireya Ramos as well as a variety of dancers.
"In Sunderland, we didn't need to do any form of selection process," Lim says. "Here, our job was to try and find a cross section of New York at this moment that feels representative of the wider community." Yet even though they're centering ordinary New Yorkers, Lim stresses that Public Works isn't some amateur hour. "Work that's made with community artists can be as artistically relevant and inspiring and important as any other show," she says.
Basulto agrees. "It's so important to me that people understand this is not a charity effort," he says. "We're going to tell a story that can only happen with 100 New Yorkers onstage. Someone might not sing in the way that you would expect at The Met Opera, but that's not where this is being performed. As human beings, we understand the world through stories. When we limit stories to only being the small set that are profitable within the very narrow bounds of our industry, we are limiting the way we understand the world."
Of the community cast, 60 are returning for an encore Public Works experience while 40 are brand new. "We strive to reach that person who's never heard of Shakespeare in the Park and has barely heard of Hamilton," Basulto says. "Yet when we say, 'Would you like to show up as an artist?' something is awoken inside of them."
Lim and Canham acknowledge that mounting Public Record in NYC has been equally exhilarating and daunting. "This city is one of the most multicultural communities in the entire world," Lim says. "We are not claiming to make a definitive piece about New York because that feels impossible. We're making a piece that reflects the experiences, the lives, the loves, the losses, the hopes, the dreams and the realities of a group of people who live in New York in 2026."
It's not just the performers who will mirror our melting pot. Because the majority of tickets to Public Record are free, The Public Theater expects to welcome an array of residents from all five boroughs. No-cost tickets can be obtained in three ways: on the day of the performance in person at the Delacorte Theater, via an in-person lottery in the lobby of The Public Theater or through a digital lottery via the TodayTix mobile app. (Note: there's no borough ticket distribution like there is for Shakespeare in the Park.)
Public Record only runs September 4 to 8, but there is another way to catch it: the show is also being filmed for the Theatre on Film and Tape Archive at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. "One of the cast members looked at me the other day and said, "This is being recorded. I didn't think I would have a legacy, but this is it,'" Basulto shares. "'I'm leaving something behind now.'"
"I think it feels like protest, what we're doing," says Lim about a show spotlighting the many immigrants and marginalized folks who make our city great. "It feels radical inviting these people to take up this space in this way onstage, right in the heart of the city at this time. We said on the first day of rehearsal: 'We hope that this is an act of history, an act of humanity, an act of hope, and—if we do all of those things—maybe also an act of healing.'"