"This first biography of the late Joseph Papp will be a hard act to follow. Epstein, who collaborated with Papp on an earlier attempt to tell the theatrical impresario's story, had access to Papp's papers, his family, friends, enemies, and business associates. A man of many contradictions, one who invented and reinvented himself, Papp was a tough kid from Brooklyn. His street-learned business sense would enable him to sift the gold from the glitter of Michael Bennett's A Chorus Line, and his early exposure to Hamlet would lead to the founding of the New York Shakespeare Festival. Epstein recounts these and other triumphs in detail, providing fascinating background on the plays, the theaters, the actors and directors, the political battles, the hits and misses. She also does a remarkably balanced job of describing Papp's not-so-nice private life, his wives and lovers, and his difficult relationships with his children. Was Papp a prodigiously creative cultural entrepreneur . . . a contemporary Robin Hood who stole art from the rich and gave it to the poor, or was he, as critic John Simon argues, a man with vulgar . . . notions of what culture is? Epstein manages to show that he was all of the above. And more."

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