FOLGER SHAKESPEARE LIBRARY
About
Folger Shakespeare Library, opened in 1932, features the first replica in North America of an Elizabethan theater, a 250-seat space designed to suggest inn yard playing spaces. Founders Henry and Emily Folger envisioned it as a place for the performance of the plays in Shakespeare’s style, and the first nationally televised Shakespeare play in the US was Julius Caesar broadcast from the Folger stage in 1949.
Folger Theatre's annual season features text-centered productions that reflect the rarity of the Folger’s collection and resources. Called “the go-to local troupe for classical innovation with unmatched imaginative momentum,” (The Washington Post) Folger Theatre produces award-winning stagings of nearly 85% of Shakespeare’s canon, as well as other plays from the period of the Folger’s rare collection, and new work, including commissions inspired by the period.
The unique placement of the Folger as a library and performing arts institution affords multiple points of connection for our audiences, actors, designers, and directors, who have full access to research expertise and primary source materials not available anywhere else in the world. Our audiences also experience our high-caliber productions with the original works on view.
Folger Theatre is the vibrant centerpiece of the Folger Shakespeare Library, producing plays reflecting the breadth of the library’s peerless collection. Led since 1991 by Artistic Producer Janet Alexander Griffin, Folger Theatre has received 146 nominations and 30 Helen Hayes Awards for excellence in acting, direction, design, and production. During recent seasons, Folger Theatre has received the Outstanding Resident Play Award for its productions Sense and Sensibility, The Taming of the Shrew, Hamlet, and Measure for Measure.
Folger Theatre has a long history of exciting collaborations. We have co-produced, presented, and screened plays from sister theaters around the world: Bedlam, Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Fiasco Theater, Reduced Shakespeare Company Shakespeare’s Globe London, Royal Shakespeare Company, The Classical Theatre of Harlem, Third Rail Project and Two River Theater Company.
To engage the national theater community, Folger Theatre developed the Folger Shakespeare Partnership Program. This program was designed to provide mutual co-branding and audience-building benefits between the Folger and theaters around the country that traditionally produce Shakespeare. The program's goal is to deepen engagement of Shakespeare audiences by connecting them to the resources, programs, and collections of the Folger Shakespeare Library, and to the work of festivals and theaters that are leading the way in significant Shakespeare programming. With this program, we are connecting artists and theater staff to the resources of the Folger, which is the largest Shakespeare collection in the world.
Folger Theatre also partnered with Simon and Schuster to increase digital availability of our Shakespeare productions through audio recordings produced by Folger Theatre. Folger Theatre collaborates with the Folger education department in presenting programs for students and teachers, and drawing thousands of students to its productions, ensuring a new generation of enthusiastic learners and lovers of Shakespeare.
“breathtakingly original...strikingly contemporary”
Photo Credits: Folger Theatre, Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Adapted by William Davenant, Directed by Robert Richmond with music by Folger Consort. Pictured Ethan Watermeier, Rachel Montgomery and Emily Noel.
Folger Theatre, Shakespeare’s Love’s Labor’s Lost, Directed by Vivienne Benesch. Pictured Matt Dallal, Jack Schmitt, Joshua David Robinson and Zachary Fine.
Folger Theatre, Shakespeare’s King John, Directed by Aaron Posner Pictured Kate Eastwood Norris, Elan Zafir and Megan Graves.
Folger Theatre, Shakespeare’s 1 Henry IV, Directed by Rosa Joshi. Pictured Edward Gero and Avery Whitted.