{"id":319934,"date":"2026-08-13T00:13:36","date_gmt":"2026-08-13T00:13:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/319934\/"},"modified":"2026-08-13T00:13:36","modified_gmt":"2026-08-13T00:13:36","slug":"read-the-reviews-for-the-winters-tale-at-free-shakespeare-in-the-park","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/319934\/","title":{"rendered":"Read the Reviews for The Winter&#8217;s Tale at Free Shakespeare in the Park"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The reviews are rolling in for\u00a0<a data-crosslink=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/playbill.com\/production\/the-winters-tale-off-broadway-public-theater-delacorte-theater-2026\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">The Winter&#8217;s Tale<\/a>\u00a0at Central Park&#8217;s Delacorte Theater, which officially opened August 11. Staged by\u00a0The Public&#8217;s Free Shakespeare in the Park, the starry Daniel Sullivan-directed production\u00a0is\u00a0running through August 23. See what critics have to say about the production below.<\/p>\n<p>Leading the cast are Ra\u00fal Esparza (of Broadway&#8217;s upcoming Galileo) as Leontes and Lily Rabe (of the upcoming Other Desert Cities) as Hermione. Other cast members include Chuck Cooper as Old Shepherd, Teagle F. Bougere as Camillo, Matthew Eby as Mamillius and Time, Isabela Ferrer as Perdita, Katie Griffith as Mopsa, Alex Hernandez as Cleomenes, Michael Khalid Karadsheh as Young Shepherd, Daniel Kyri as Florizel, Aubie Merrylees as Archidamus, Jennifer Mogbock as Emilia, Gilbert Owuor as Polixenes, Matthew Russell as Dion, and Steven Skybell as Antigonus and Autolycus. Completing the company are ensemblists Heschel Bay, Denise Kolodja, Violeta Picayo, Bianca Rogoff, Michael Thanh Tran, and Jackson Whitman; and musician Peter Douskalis.<\/p>\n<p>Read the reviews below.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/1minutecritic.com\/winters-tale-public-theater-central-park-review-2026\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">1\u00a0Minute Critic (Bobby McGuire)<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/cititour.com\/NYC_Broadway\/The-Winters-Tale\/1390\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><br \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/cititour.com\/NYC_Broadway\/The-Winters-Tale\/1390\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">CitiTour NYC (Brian Scott Lipton)<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/culturesauce.com\/winters-tale-central-park-2026-off-broadway-review\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Culture Sauce (Thom\u00a0Geier)<\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/www.lightingandsoundamerica.com\/news\/story.asp?ID=TJNU91\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><br \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.lightingandsoundamerica.com\/news\/story.asp?ID=TJNU91\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Lighting and Sound America (David Barbour)<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/08\/12\/theater\/winters-tale-review-shakespeare-in-the-park.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">The New York\u00a0Times (Alexis Soloski)<\/a>*<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.newyorktheatreguide.com\/info\/writers\/joe-dziemianowicz\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">New York\u00a0Theatre Guide (Joe\u00a0Dziemianowicz)<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/therecs.co.uk\/the-winters-tale-shakespeare-in-the-park\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">The Recs (Carl Sullivan)<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theatermania.com\/news\/review-a-problem-play-not-this-winters-tale-starring-raul-esparza-and-lily-rabe_1848887\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">TheaterMania (Kenji Fujishima)<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.vulture.com\/article\/theater-review-the-winters-tale-in-central-park.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Vulture (Sara Holdren)<\/a>*<\/p>\n<p>*This review may require creating a free account or paid subscription.<\/p>\n<p>Playbill will continue to update this list as reviews come in.<\/p>\n<p>The outdoor production also features scenic design by Maruti Evans, costume design by Linda Cho, sound design by Brian Ronan, music by Tom Kitt, hair and wig design by Tom Watson, sound system design by Mike Tracey, puppet design by James Ortiz, and prop management by Rachel Kenner. Caroline Englander serves as production stage manager, with Jessie Moore and Luisa S\u00e1nchez Col\u00f3n as stage managers. Lieber also serves as associate director.<\/p>\n<p>As always, tickets to The Winter&#8217;s Tale and the entirety of the Free Shakespeare in the Park season are available for free. Tickets are distributed on the day of each performance in-person at the Delacorte, and at borough distribution sites, including many dates at branches of Citizens Bank. Producing company The Public Theater also offers an in-person lottery at the theatre&#8217;s East Village venue, and a digital lottery via the TodayTix smartphone app. A limited number of advance tickets are available by making a donation to the company&#8217;s Free Shakespeare in the Park series.<\/p>\n<p>Full ticketing details are at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.publictheater.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">PublicTheater.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The reviews are rolling in for\u00a0The Winter&#8217;s Tale\u00a0at Central Park&#8217;s Delacorte Theater, which officially opened August 11. Staged&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":319935,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[75,84,83,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-319934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=319934"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319934\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/319935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=319934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=319934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=319934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}