but the theater was doing its part
to change what it meant to be gay
in the United States.
And I'm incredibly proud of that.
(Applause)
When I took over Joe's old job
at the Public in 2005,
I realized one of the problems we had
was a victim of our own success,
which is: Shakespeare in the Park
had been founded as a program for access,
and it was now the hardest ticket
to get in New York City.
People slept out for two nights
to get those tickets.
What was that doing?
That was eliminating
98 percent of the population
from even considering going to it.
So we refounded the mobile unit
and took Shakespeare to prisons,
to homeless shelters,
to community centers in all five boroughs
and even in New Jersey
and Westchester County.
And that program proved something to us
that we knew intuitively:
people's need for theater
is as powerful as their desire for food
or for drink.
It's been an extraordinary success,
and we've continued it.
And then there was yet another barrier
that we realized we weren't crossing,