Public Record returns with New York tribute at Delacorte

Public Record will be performed at the Delacorte Theater in New York from 4-8 September. The live production is a reinvention of a three-night show originally developed in Sunderland by theatre-makers Emily Lim and Dan Canham. Lim, formerly director of the National Theatre’s Public Acts programme, and Canham, co-director and choreographer, are adapting the project for New York City’s Public Theatre. The work is inspired by the Public Works branch of the Public Theatre, which engaged about 350 New Yorkers nearly a year ago through workshops and surveys. The process, described by Lim as beginning and ending with deep listening, aimed to find people steeped in life and culture in the city to lead and curate stories. The final cast ranges in age from seven to 84 and includes over 100 participants, mostly community members from the five boroughs, alongside a handful of professional musicians and dancers. The piece is structured as a 12-track album, developed with playwright Lisa Sanaye Dring, whose play Sumo was produced at the Public last year. Dring shaped the research into the tracklist, motivated not by what she wanted to say but by what the community expressed. Tracks are titled after types of public record, such as Birth Certificate, where performers share origin stories, and Karaoke, which adapts the song I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me) from its original Dancing Queen. The Tribute Act track initially honored Faye Fantarrow, a Sunderland singer-songwriter who died in 2023 aged 21 and was beloved by the city. In New York, the team found it impossible to single out one individual, so the track evolved into a broader interpretation of collective grief and each city’s relationship to death. For the After Dark track, honoring the city’s nightlife, the team collaborated with Papi Juice, a Brooklyn-based collective that centers queer and trans people of color. Papi Juice has organized parties since 2013 and recently expanded into theatrical spaces like Little Island and Lincoln Center. Their resident DJ, Oscar Nñ, is producing the collective’s first complete song for Public Record, co-written and performed with artist Maya Margarita, who has opened for Beyoncé’s Renaissance tour and acted off-Broadway. Nñ describes the song as high-energy and clubby with romance, dreaminess, and longing, emphasizing the importance of queer dancefloors to culture. Music director Michael Thurber, a longtime Public collaborator, enlisted local artists across scenes, including Carnatic violinist Arun Ramamurthy and Louis Cato, who led the house band for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. The Love Song track went through multiple iterations, initially avoiding the obvious choice of New York, New York, the theme from Martin Scorsese’s film. Eventually, the team found inspiration in the Knicks’ improbable summer win, leading to the idea of performing it in Spanish as a nod to the city’s Spanish-speaking population. The track, now titled Nuevayol as a wink to Bad Bunny’s ode to the city, features new arrangements by Latin jazz legend Arturo O’Farrill and will be sung live by Puerto Rican musician Mireya Ramos. Lim says the track introduces migration stories and reflects how New Yorkers hold multiplicity and difference, questioning who gets to call the city home and belong. The Marriage Certificate track includes musical snippets that, according to Thurber, trigger instant cultural recognition-whenever a certain song plays, people know exactly what to do. He notes that presenting such culture on the Delacorte Theater stage, which normally hosts Shakespeare, affirms these practices as art and powerful bonding forces. Thurber adds that it is beautiful when people not from New York help tell its story, because that, in his view, is what New York is: if you decide it’s your home and respect the city, it will respect you. The Guardian is the source of this report.