Metro

Helicopters are ruining Shakespeare in the Park: theater officials

My kingdom for some quiet.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler and officials from the Public Theater pleaded Friday for the FAA to divert helicopter traffic from Central Park because the noise keeps interrupting Shakespeare in the Park, which is currently staging “Twelfth Night.”

Nadler has been pushing for years to ban tourist choppers entirely from Manhattan, but now he’s also focusing his ire on the tempest over the park.

“Shakespeare in the Park is a New York institution. It’s a major focus of tourism, economic development and culture in New York. So why would we allow a couple of helicopters to disrupt that?” he asked. “We urge the FAA to act without delay.”

The issue has been a midsummer’s nightmare for the Public Theater since at least 2014, according to e-mails from the de Blasio administration obtained by The Post.

Artistic director Oskar Eustis asked pal Cynthia Nixon that summer to relay his concerns about the “PLAGUE of helicopters at the Delacorte” to Mayor de Blasio.

“There’s apparently a new, ‘uber’ like helicopter service and it is DESTROYING King Lear,” he wrote to Nixon on July 24, 2014. “Bill can ask Chuck Schumer about it, chuck was there last night.”

A mayoral aide responded within days that City Hall requested pilots avoid the open-air theater during summer evenings — an intervention that seemed to work quickly.

“Wow. Major results, major improvement,” Eustis wrote in an e-mail to Nixon on Aug. 1, 2014 which she forwarded to the mayor. “Can’t thank you enough, for myself and for the thousands of people who will now be able to hear Lear.”

But all didn’t end well.

On Friday, Eustis said the emotional unity of an engaged crowd is repeatedly being broken by roaring choppers “so loud the actors cannot hear themselves or hear each other on stage.” Six helicopters flew overhead during a brief press conference outside the theater.

“All of that beautiful connection between the audience and the stage is disrupted by helicopters — which are occasionally so loud the actors can not hear themselves or hear each other on stage,” said Eustis.

FAA officials didn’t respond to requests for comment.