Booking and details
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Dates Sep 22 – Nov 01, 2026
Venue Folger Theatre
Duration Approximately 2 hours and 30 minutes, including a 15-minute intermission
Please note: Children under the age of 4 are not permitted.
Measure for Measure, where human nature collides with the letter of the law, offers a timeless parable of power and redemption. This production of Shakespeare’s dark comedy, set in the American South in the 1950s, comes to life under the direction of Psalmayene 24, Helen Hayes Award winner for Folger Theatre’s production of Metamorphoses.
Newly enforced regulations penalize the everyday citizens of Vienna, but don’t stop the hijinks of a rambunctious crew of bawdy residents. In this morally lax city, a corrupt official tries to coerce novice nun Isabella to submit to his desires. Can Isabella maintain her vow of chastity and save her incarcerated brother’s life?
Measure for Measure offers considerations into societal upheaval and asks whose voices are silenced and whose voices break through.
ENVIRONMENTAL WARNING:
This production includes the use of airborne haze.
Subscribe to Folger Theatre’s 2026-2027 season to see three Shakespeare plays: Measure for Measure, Hamlet, and The Comedy of Errors.
Reviews
“The sharpest Shakespeare on any DC stage this fall.” — Michael Woestehoff, The Washington Lobbyist
“Of the many fine elements in Folger Theatre’s Measure for Measure the absolute top is Renea S. Brown’s performance as Isabella.”— Mary Lincer, BroadwayWorld
“Directed by Psalmayene 24, the production takes one of Shakespeare’s more complicated plays and leans into what makes it so endlessly interesting: nobody is entirely innocent, nobody holds power for long, and morality can look very different depending on who is making the rules.” — Kate Michael, K Street Magazine
“An excellent production of a complicated play.” — Emily Townsend, Two Hours’ Traffic
Cast
Renea S. Brown*
Renea S. Brown (Isabella) Folger Theatre: Macbeth: A Tribute to the Federal Theatre Project; Metamorphoses, Our Verse in Time to Come, A Midsummer Night’s Dream; Round House Theatre: Sally and Tom, The Mountaintop (Helen Hayes Award: Outstanding Lead Performer), Sojourners (Helen Hayes Award: Outstanding Supporting Performer), Nollywood Dreams; Theatre Alliance: Furlough’s Paradise (Helen Hayes Award: Outstanding Lead Performer), Covenant; Arena Stage: Tempestuous Elements, Change Agent; Shakespeare Theatre Company: Macbeth, The Tempest; Ford’s Theatre: The American Five. Co-founder of Imminent Theatre Company. Film/Television: Godfather of Harlem (MGM+), Law and Order (NBC), Beauty’s Keeper (Amazon). www.reneabrown.com @TheRealDarkLady
Nathan Darrow*
Nathan Darrow (Duke)
Folger Theatre: debut; Arena Stage: Long Day’s Journey into Night. Off-Broadway: Soho Playhouse: (un)conditional (Drama Desk Nomination); Classic Stage Company/ Transport Group Theatre Company: Summer and Smoke. International: Richard III (Old Vic Theatre/World Tour/Brooklyn Academy of Music). Regional: Hartford Stage: Jekyll & Hyde, The Winter’s Tale (Connecticut Critics Circle Award); Music Theater Heritage: Guys and Dolls; Old Globe: Dial M for Murder; Kansas City Repertory Theatre: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof; People’s Light: A Number; Heart of America Shakespeare Festival: Hamlet, Henry V; McCarter Theatre Center: Five Mile Lake; American Repertory Theater: Ajax; Weston Playhouse: Death of a Salesman. Film/Television: Chrystal Lake, House of Cards; Billions; Gotham; The Wizard of Lies; Preacher; Rectify; Godless.
JaBen Early*
JaBen Early (Claudio) Folger Theatre: Macbeth: A Tribute to the Federal Theatre Project, LEAR (Reading Room Festival 2026), Our Verse in Time to Come (Reading Room Festival 2023); Julius Caesar; Olney Theatre Center: Piano Lesson; Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company: The Convert and Civilization; Studio Theatre: F**king A; Mosaic Theatre Company: Unexplored Interior; Round House Theatre: Father Comes Home from the Wars; Arena Stage: All the Way, Ruined and The Great Society; Guthrie Theater: We Are Proud to Present…and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner; Marin Theatre Company: The Convert; InterAct Theatre Company: We Are Proud to Present….
Jonathan Feuer*
Jonathan Feuer (Lucio) Folger Theatre: debut; Round House Theatre: Rules for Living; Shakespeare Theatre Company: Richard III, As You Like It; Signature Theatre: John; Theater J: Eureka Day, The Call; Mosaic Theater Company: Monumental Travesties, Charm; Kennedy Center TYA: How to Catch a Star, Flowers Stink; Imagination Stage: Charlotte’s Web, The Freshest Snow Whyte; Rep Stage: Antigone Project; Arena Stage, Studio Theatre, Prologue Theatre, Solas Nua, Spooky Action Theater, Keegan Theatre, Adventure Theatre, and more. Certified Personal Trainer: www.trainerjon.com
Sean Fri*
Sean Fri (Provost) Folger Theatre: Richard III, Timon of Athens; Signature Theatre: The Threepenny Opera, Billy Elliot. Shakespeare Theatre Company: The Tempest. Aquila Theatre Company: Cyrano de Bergerac/ Much Ado About Nothing (tour). Totem Pole Playhouse: Honus and Me, Travels with My Aunt, Murder in Green Meadows, more. Off-Broadway: Kirk Theater: Heat Lightning.
Maryanne Henderson
Maryanne Henderson (Juliet) Folger Theatre: debut. Avant Bard: Two Gentlemen of Killarney; Constellation Theatre Company: OR,; Imagination Stage: Tomás and the Library Lady; ExPats Theatre: Cold Country; Songs of the Goat: Antigone; Prince George’s Shakespeare in the Parks Tour: A Midsummer Night’s Dream; Shakespeare Theatre Company Academy: Arden of Faversham, East of the Sun, West of the Moon, Taming of the Shrew, Or, Petruchio is Kated.
Ahmad Kamal*
Ahmad Kamal (Pompey) Folger Theatre: As You Like It; Shakespeare Theatre Company: Guys and Dolls, Babbitt, Everybody, Richard III; Arena Stage: Holiday; Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company: Gloria (Helen Hayes nomination – Best Supporting Actor), Kiss; Mosaic Theater Company: The Return, Pilgrims Musa and Sheri in The New World; Signature Theatre: 4,380 Nights; Studio Theatre, Olney Theatre Center. Regional: Northlight Theatre: Selling Kabul; OKC Rep: LIFE SUCKS; Amphibian Stage: Baba, The Handless King. Off-Broadway: The Public: Sumo (Lucille Lortel and Dorian Award nominations – Best Featured Actor). @king_o_egypt
Lee Osorio*
Lee Osorio (Angelo) Folger Theatre: debut; Mosaic Theater: A Case for the Existence of God. Regional: Alliance Theatre: A Tale of Two Cities, The Temple Bombing. Off-Broadway: New World Stages: A Bullet for Adolf. Film/Television: Found (NBC), Mayor of Kingstown (Paramount), Your Honor (Showtime). LeeOsorio.com
Chinai Routté*
Chinai Routté (Mistress Overdone) Folger Theatre: debut; Round House Theatre: The Trip to Bountiful; Everyman Theatre: Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, The Piano Lesson, POTUS. Regional: Alliance Theatre: In the Red and Brown Water, The Nacirema Society; Cleveland Playhouse: The Trip to Bountiful; Alabama Shakespeare Festival: The Nacirema Society. New York: Rattlestick Theater: Room Enough (For Us Al); The Fire This Time Festival: Dream Awake. Film/Television: Air Junie, The Day Before Christmas (Paramount+), I Never Said Goodbye (Amazon Prime). @Chinawithani
Ryan Sellers
Ryan Sellers (Elbow, Friar Thomas) Folger Theatre: The Second Shepherds’ Play; Round House Theatre: The Tempest (Helen Hayes Award – Best Supporting Performer); Signature Theatre: Pippin, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Pacific Overtures, West Side Story, The Threepenny Opera, Miss Saigon; Ford’s Theatre: Little Shop of Horrors; Studio Theater: Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson; Shakespeare Theatre Company: Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream; Adventure Theatre: Not Your Mothers Goose (Helen Hayes nomination – Outstanding Supporting Performer); Imagination Stage: The Snowman and the Snowdog, Ballad of Mu Lan, The Night Fairy, Anime Momotaro; Constellation Theatre Company: Dracula: A Comedy of Terrors, School for Lies, White Snake; Keegan Theatre: Noises Off (Helen Hayes nomination – Outstanding Supporting Performer), Apropos of Nothing, The Undeniable Sound of Right Now, Shakespeare in Love. National Tour: Five Little Monkeys.
John Sygar*
John Sygar (Froth and others/Music Director) Folger Theatre: As You Like It; Arena Stage: Swept Away; Studio Theatre: Purlie Victorious; Kennedy Center: Look Both Ways; Capital Repertory Albany: Once; Olney Theatre Center: Beauty and the Beast, A.D.16, Once; Signature Theatre: Light Years; Round House Theatre: Spring Awakening; Monumental Theatre Co.: Head Over Heels.
New York: Broadway: Swept Away. Other credits: Only Make Believe (Company Member), songwriter for baseball hat. Instagram: @jsyg
Holly Twyford*
Holly Twyford (Escalus) Folger Theatre: Dark Lady: A Musical Theater Work (Reading Room Festival 2026), An English Garden (Folger Consort), The Love Birds: Chaucer’s A Parlement of Foules (Folger Consort), King John, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Mary Stuart, The Taming of the Shrew, Orestes: A Tragic Romp, Arcadia, The Second Shepherds’ Play, Melissa Arctic, All’s Well That Ends Well, The Two Gentlemen of Verona (Helen Hayes Award), Twelfth Night, Othello, As You Like It, Hamlet, Much Ado About Nothing, Romeo and Juliet (Helen Hayes Award), The Merchant of Venice. Over eighty productions at DC Area theater including: Shakespeare Theatre Company, Studio Theatre, Woolly Mammoth, Round House Theatre, and others. Awards & Affiliations: 4 Helen Hayes Awards, Emery Battis Award for Acting Excellence, Lunt-Fontanne Fellow, Studio Theatre Cabinet Member, Ford’s Associate Artist.
Renee Elizabeth Wilson
Renee Elizabeth Wilson (Mariana) Folger Theatre: Macbeth: A Tribute to the Federal Theatre Project , LEAR (Reading Room Festival 2026); Julius X: A Re-envisioning of The Tragedy of Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare, Hamlet (Reading Room Festival 2025), Romeo and Juliet, Metamorphoses (Helen Hayes Award nomination) Metamorphoses (Helen Hayes Nomination), Nell Gwynn; Theater Alliance: American Fast (Helen Hayes Nomination); Mosaic Theater Company: Monumental Travesties (World Premiere), Native Son, Milk Like Sugar; Theater J: Eureka Day, Intimate Apparel;. Round House Theatre: Radio Golf, Nollywood Dreams; Constellation Theatre Company: Moon Man Walk; Woolly Mammoth Theatre: Ain’t No Mo’; Imagination Stage: The Hula Hoopin Queen (World Premiere); Studio Theatre: Skeleton Crew, Doubt, White Noise; Arena Stage: Tempestuous Elements, Seven Guitars. International: Red Shoes (World Premiere) Film: Smoke Out, Veracity. @actpoetic88
Understudies
Joshua Ariel Biatch
Joshua Ariel Biatch (u/s Lucio, Elbow, and Others) Folger Theatre: debut; Chesapeake Shakespeare Company: Romeo and Juliet; The Puppet Co.: Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins; InterAct Story Theatre: Bobtail Bong Bong: A Monkey’s Tale; Regional: Great Lakes Theater: Macbeth, Julius Caesar; Whirligig Productions: Cymbeline; Sunstone Studios MKE: The Lisbon Traviata; American Thymele Theatre: Ion. @the_jew_shakespeare_never_met
Sirra Faal
Sirra Faal (u/s Mistress Overdone and Mariana) Folger Theatre: As You Like It (u/s); Round House Theatre: Sojourners, Nollywood Dreams; Constellation Theatre Company: Dracula: A Comedy of Terrors; NextStop Theatre Company: Chicken and Biscuits. @sirra.faal
Michael Girts
Michael Girts (u/s Provost, Froth, and Others) Folger Theatre: debut; Shakespeare Theatre Company Academy: Macbeth, Much Ado About Nothing, Twelfth Night, Morphos; Taffety Punk Theatre Company: Freddie: A Girl. New York: Off-Broadway: New World Stages: Blank! The Musical; American Theatre of Actors: One Night Only. Regional: The Second City: Fair and Unbalanced, Rod Blagojevich Superstar; Left Edge Theatre: The Play That Goes Wrong, Dry Powder, Title of Show; Jacobethan Theatre Workshop: Macbeth, Twelfth Night, As You Like It; Midsommer Flight: Love’s Labour’s Lost; Syracuse Stage: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Crimes of the Heart. Teaching: Second City, Notre Dame. michaelgirts.com
Max Johnson
Max Johnson (u/s The Duke and Angelo) Folger Theatre: debut; Keegan Theatre: Everything is Wonderful; The Kennedy Center: Shear Madness; Faction of Fools: A Commedia Romeo & Juliet; Rorschach Theatre: Angel Number Nine; Edge of the Universe Theater: Loot, The Caretaker; Imagination Stage: Inside Out and Backwards, S.P.I.E.S. 2: The Flight of the Hawk. Regional: Bluff City Theater: Butterflies Are Free. Tours: Olney Theatre Center National Players: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, A Raisin in the Sun; Immediate Theatre Project: It’s A Wonderful Life. Teaching: Teaching Artist at Ford’s Theatre and Shakespeare Theatre Company. maxjohnsonactor.com @maxjohnsondc
James Stringer, Jr.
James Stringer, Jr. (u/s Claudio and Pompey) Folger Theatre: debut; Rorschach Theatre: Night of the Living Dead Live; Chesapeake Shakespeare Company: Romeo and Juliet. Regional: Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park: Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley, A Christmas Carol. Film: Programmed.
Ava Wilson
Ava Wilson (u/s Juliet and Escalus) Folger Theatre: debut; Studio Theatre: Octet; Olney Theatre Center: Hello, Dolly!; Constellation Theatre Company: Head Over Heels. @ava.wils
Creative team
Psalmayene 24**
Psalmayene 24 (Director) Folger Theatre: Metamorphoses (Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Direction). Directing: Arena Stage: Tempestuous Elements; Studio Theatre: Purlie Victorious, The Colored Museum, Good Bones, Flow, Pass Over; Ford’s Theatre: Necessary Sacrifices: A Radio Play; Mosaic Theater Company: Young John Lewis: Prodigy of Protest (Librettist/Lyricist), Monumental Travesties (Playwright), Dear Mapel (Playwright/Actor), Les Deux Noirs (Playwright), Native Son (Director); Joe’s Movement Emporium: Out of the Vineyard (Playwright); Theater Alliance: Word Becomes Flesh (Director); Imagination Stage: Cinderella: The Remix (Playwright/Director); African Continuum Theatre Company: Free Jujube Brown! (Playwright/Actor). Television/Film: HBO’s The Wire (Actor). Helen Hayes Award and Victor Shargai Leadership Award recipient. @psalmayene24
Tony Thomas**
Tony Thomas (Choreographer) Folger Theatre: As You Like it, Twelfth Night, Metamorphoses (Helen Hayes Award – Outstanding Choreography); Studio Theatre: P.Y.G. or the Mis-Edumacation of Dorian Belle (Helen Hayes nomination), Pass Over, Flow, Good Bones, Fat Ham (Helen Hayes nomination), People, Places & Things, The Colored Museum (Helen Hayes nomination), Imagination Stage: P. Nokio, Dory Fantasmagory, Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed, Miss Nelson is Missing; Arena Stage: Tempestuous Elements; Mosaic Theatre: Young John Lewis; Woolly Mammoth Theatre: A Fine Madness; Theatre Alliance: Word Becomes Flesh (Helen Hayes nomination). Off-Broadway: Minetta Lane/Daryl Roth Theatre: Mexodus (Lucille Lortel nomination). @tonythomasii
KOKAYI
KOKAYI (Composer) Folger Theatre: As You Like It; Mosaic Theatre Company: Young John Lewis. Artist: Kevin Hart’s Laugh at My Pain, Black Beauty, MTV’s Rebel Music, CNN Great Big Story, Nickelodeon, BET How I’m Living. Guggenheim Fellow Composition, Grammy Nominee Best Urban Alternative Song. www.kokayi.com, @kokayi
Mekala Sridhar
Mekala Sridhar (Adaptor) Folger Theatre: Metamorphoses (Associate Director), The Reading Room Festival 2025 (Artistic Consultant). Spooky Action Theatre Company: Hakawatis; NextStop Theatre Company: Guards at the Taj; Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company / Theatre For A New Audience: Public Obscenities (Associate Director);Studio Theatre: Fun Home, Pass Over (Assistant Director); Solas Nua: Hakawatis (reading) (Director); Atlas Arts Lab: Nothing You Desire (workshop) (Director); Prologue Theatre: A Wake At Singh’s (workshop) (Director). Regional: The Old Globe: What You Are (Assistant Director); La Jolla Playhouse: Light Years Away (Assistant Director). www.mekalasridhar.com
Debra Booth***
Debra Booth (Scenic Designer) Folger Theatre: debut. Studio Theatre: Octet, People, Places & Things, Pass Over; Shakespeare Theatre Company: Richard III (Helen Hayes nomination), The Lover and The Collection; Mosaic Theatre: Sooner or Later; Round House Theatre: Small Mouth Sounds. NYC: New York Shakespeare Festival/The Public: Marisol; Actors Studio: Oedipus the King; New York City Opera at Lincoln Center: Marco Polo (opera); Julliard School: Angels in America Part 1 (NY premiere). International: Münchener Bienniale, The Holland Festival, Hong Kong Festival: Marco Polo (opera). www.debra-booth.com
Mika Eubanks***
Mika Eubanks (Costume Design) Folger Theatre: Metamorphoses (Helen Hayes nomination); Arena Stage: The Motion; Baltimore Center Stage: Pray, Fires In The Mirror. Regional: The Old Globe: The XIXth; Barrington Stage: N/A; Classical Theatre of Harlem: Twelfth Night, Othello. Off-Broadway: Ars Nova: Heaux Church; Manhattan Theatre Club: The Monsters; Lincoln Center: Flex; Vineyard Theatre: Lessons in Survival: 1971. Film/Television: Candace (Amazon Prime), Souvenir. Awards: Connecticut Critics Circle Award, Audelco Award. mikaeubanks.com
Jesse Belsky***
Jesse Belsky (Lighting Designer) Folger Theatre: Henry IV, Part 1, The Winter’s Tale, Sense and Sensibility, A Midsummer Night’s Dream; Arena Stage: JQA, The Year of Magical Thinking; Ford’s Theatre: Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?; Baltimore Center Stage: Holes; Studio Theatre: Summer 1976, The Colored Museum, John Proctor is the Villain; Round House Theatre: Oslo, The Book of Will; Signature Theatre: Penelope, The Bridges of Madison County, Sweeney Todd; Olney Theatre Center: The Music Man; Oregon Shakespeare Festival: Henry IV P.1. Teaching: Connecticut College, UNC Greensboro. jessebelsky.com
Matthew M. Nielson***
Matthew M. Nielson (Sound Designer) Folger Theatre: The Winter’s Tale, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Twelfth Night, Othello, Much Ado About Nothing, Hamlet; Arena Stage: Nina Simone: Four Women; Round House Theatre: Sally & Tom, The Book of Will, The Prayer for Owen Meany (Helen Hayes Award, Outstanding Sound Design); Theater Alliance: Mnemonic (Helen Hayes Award, Outstanding Sound Design); Olney Theatre Center: Appropriate. Regional: Guthrie Theater/Cincinnati Playhouse/ Dallas Theater Center/Oregon Shakespeare Festival: Shane; Guthrie Theater: Little Women; Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park: Last Wide Open; Milwaukee Rep: Peter and the Starcatcher. Off-Broadway: Public Theater/New York Shakespeare Festival: Shakespeare’s Villains. Film/Television : OWN: The Hero Effect, Netflix, Discovery Channel. matthewnielson.com
LaShawn Melton
LaShawn Melton (Hair and Wig Design) Folger Theatre: As You Like It, Julius X, The Winter’s Tale; Olney Theatre Company: A Gentlemen’s Guide to Love and Murder, Carla Hall, Little Miss Perfect, Senior Class; Round House Theatre: Sally & Tom, School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play; Arena Stage: The Motion, Fremont Ave., Death on the Nile, The Other Americans, Tempestuous Elements; Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company: The Great Privation, The Sensational Sea Mink-ettes; Signature Theatre: Play On!; Studio Theatre: Mother Play, Paradise Blue; Kennedy Center: The Watsons Go to Birmingham – 1963. Regional: Utah Shakespeare Festival: A Raisin in the Sun, Emma: the Musical, The Play that Goes Wrong; Montgomery College: Little Women. Film/Television: Lioness, White House Plumbers, Rustin, Fellow Travelers.
Deborah Thomas
Deborah Thomas (Props Designer) Folger Theatre: Measure for Measure, Metamorphoses, 1983-85 props assistant; Mosaic Theater Company: Andy Warhol in Iran, Confederates, Monumental Travesties, Bars and Measures, The Till Trilogy, Birds of North America, Eureka Day; Studio Theatre: Purlie Victorious, Props Director at Studio Theatre from 2009 to 2019. Studio Theatre: Set Designer: Terminus, Assistant Set Designer: Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, Props Designer: At The Wedding, Fat Ham, Heroes of the Fourth Turning, John Proctor is the Villain, Pass Over, among others; Theatre J: The Tale of The Allergist’s Wife, Freud’s Last Session. Television (selected): Sculptor and Sculpture Consultant: TLC’s DC Cupcakes; Set Designer: Washington Bureau of TV Tokyo; Original Set Design: Discovery Channel’s Puppy Bowl; Production Designer: PBS American Experience’s Dolley Madison; Art Direction: PBS American Experience’s Alexander Hamilton; Set Designer: Discovery Channel’s Moments in History, “Jamestown: Against All Odds.”
Danica Rodriguez
Danica Rodriguez (Casting Director) Folger Theatre: As You Like It, Twelfth Night, Our Verse in Time to Come. New York: Off-Broadway: The Public Theater: cullud wattah*, Romeo y Julieta, Soft Power, for colored girls…, Much Ado About Nothing (Shakespeare in the Park), Mojada, Ain’t No Mo’*. Regional (selected): Huntington Theatre Company: Purpose; Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company: The World to Come*, The Great Privation, The Sensational Sea Mink-ettes*; Shakespeare Theatre Company: Othello, Guys and Dolls, Merry Wives, Frankenstein*, Kunene and the King, Leopoldstadt, Comedy of Errors, Macbeth, The Lehman Trilogy, As You Like It, Macbeth In Stride, Evita, Here There Are Blueberries, King Lear, Jane Anger, Much Ado About Nothing, Red Velvet, and others. Awards: Theatre Communications Group 2021 Rising Leader of Color. Founding Trainer with Broadway for Racial Justice Casting Directive. DanicaRodriguez.com @danicarodriguezcasting | *world premiere
Nadia Guevara**
Nadia Guevara (Associate Director) Folger Theatre: Cymbeline: A Telenovela Dramatic Western (Reading Room Festival 2026), DC I Love You: First Dates; Imagination Stage: Cinderella: A Salsa Fairy Tale; Keegan Theatre: N; Shakespeare Theatre Company: Merry Wives (Helen Hayes Award – Outstanding Ensemble). Regional: Dallas Theater Center, McCarter Theatre. NYC/Off-Broadway: Keen Company/Drama League: Cell; National Queer Theatre: The Survival; The Public: Apple Bottom; The New Group: The Capitalist and the Factory Worker. Additional credits with New York Stage and Film, Red Bull Theater, Latinx Playwrights Circle. Awards: Drama League Stage Directing Fellow, NALAC Fellow, Actor of the Year – San Diego Critics Circle. nadiaguevara.com
Modupe Labode
Modupe Labode (Cultural Consultant) Folger Theatre: debut. Curator: Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, 2019-present. Associate Professor: history and museum studies, Indiana University Indianapolis.
Sierra Young**
Sierra Young (Intimacy Director) Folger Theatre: Julius X, Twelfth Night; Arena Stage: The Age of Innocence, Ja Ja’s African Hair Braiding, POTUS!; Ford’s Theatre: 1776, The American Five, Sister Act; Keegan Theatre: Everything Is Wonderful, Hand to God, Sweat; Monumental Theatre Company: Spring Awakening (Helen Hayes nomination); Mosaic Theater Company: Dodi & Diana (Helen Hayes nomination); Shakespeare Theatre Company: Frankenstein, King Lear (Helen Hayes nomination); Studio Theatre: Purlie Victorious, Jonah, Paradise Blue, The Scenarios; Washington National Opera: West Side Story, Porgy & Bess. Resident Fight & Intimacy Director: Baltimore Center Stage, Mosaic Theater Company. www.sierrayoung.org @sierrayoungfights
Lisa Beley
Lisa Beley (Voice and Text Support) Folger Theatre: debut; Shakespeare Theatre Company: Othello, Guys and Dolls, Frankenstein, Leopoldstadt, Comedy of Errors, The Lehman Trilogy, King Lear, Much Ado About Nothing, Hamlet, The Oresteia, others; STC Academy: Macbeth, Twelfth Night, The Rover, Taming of the Shrew, King John, Cherry Orchard, Julius Caesar, Pericles, others; Round House Theatre: The Inheritance; Studio Theatre: Love, Love, Love; Espejos: Clean. Film/Television: The Good Doctor (ABC), Bates Motel (A&E), The Chicken Sisters (Hallmark), Alcatraz (Fox). Teaching: STC Academy at the George Washington University.
Rukiya Henry-Fields
Rukiya Henry-Fields (Assistant Costume Designer) Folger Theatre: debut; GALA Hispanic Theatre: Garbo: The Actor Who Saved the World, La Casa de Bernarda Alba, Séneca: The Library Mouse, Héctor: El Niño Eléctrico, CHOKE, Érase Una Vez, Frida Libre, The 22+ Weddings of Hugo; Spooky Action Theatre: Tambo & Bones; Mosaic Theater Company: Young John Lewis; Shakespeare Theatre Company: Othello, Guys and Dolls, Leopoldstadt, As You Like It.
Lauren Pekel*
Lauren Pekel (Production Stage Manager) Folger Theatre: Metamorphoses; Shakespeare Theatre Company: Othello; Arena Stage: Fremont Ave. (world premiere), Data (world premiere); Studio Theatre: Paradise Blue, Fat Ham, Fun Home, Good Bones (world premiere), People, Places & Things, Vietgone, P.Y.G. or the Mis-Edumacation of Dorian Belle (world premiere), No Sisters (world premiere); Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company: The World to Come (world premiere), Teenage Dick; Signature Theatre: Job, Private Jones (world premiere). Regional: Peterborough Players, The American Conservatory Theatre.
Jazzy Davis*
Jazzy Davis (Assistant Stage Manager) Folger Theatre: Twelfth Night; Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company: The Nosebleed, Incendiary, My Mama and the Full-Scale Invasion, The Sensational Sea Mink-ettes, A Fine Madness; Studio Theatre: The Hot Wing King; Imagination Stage: Nate the Great, New Kid Arts on the Horizon: Squeakers and Mr. Gumdrop, Fitting in (workshop); Flying V Theatre: MONSTRESS; Roundhouse Theatre: Sojourners; Kennedy Center: The Sea Beyond the Ocean (workshop), Operation Sisterhood (workshop). Regional: Baltimore Center Stage: Ain’t No Mo’; The Voxel: the dance floor, the hospital room, the kitchen table; THEARC Theater/Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company: 19. Off-Broadway: The Public Theater: seven methods of killing kylie jenner; The Flea/PlayCo: Amm(i)gone.
Alexus Wells
Alexus Wells (Production Assistant) Folger Theatre: Reading Room Festival 2026, Julius X: A Re-envisioning of The Tragedy of Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare; Folger Consort: Resplendent Joy: Christmas Traditions from Spain and Portugal.
*Member of Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States
**Member of Stage Directors and Choreographers Society
***Member of United Scenic Artists
Folger Theatre Sponsors
With special thanks to
Share Fund
The Shubert Foundation
Premiere Season Sponsors
Dr. Bill and Evelyn Braithwaite
Andrea “Andi” Kasarsky
Season Sponsors
Scott and Liz Vance
Contributing Sponsors
Keith and Celia Arnaud
Nicky Cymrot
Open-captioned Performance Sponsors
Vinton and Sigrid Cerf
Related events
Shared Stages: To Hear Her Speak
Humanities Lab: To Hear Her Speak
Accessibility
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Special performances
Student matinee
Wednesday, Oct 14, 2026 at 10am
At a Folger student matinee, students are exposed to professional theater of the highest quality, developing and deepening a respect for and love of the arts. Learn more
Post-show discussion
Thursday, Oct 15, 2026 at 7:30pm
Join us after the performance for a free conversation with the cast, moderated by the production dramaturg.
Related blog posts
Go behind the scenes with this production and explore quotes, collection items, and more.
Dressing the Past in Measure for Measure
Costume Designer and Folger Artistic Research Fellow Mika Eubanks discusses her historical research into designing Measure for Measure costumes that capture the fashions of the 1950s in the US Southern states.
The power of changing the setting in Measure for Measure
Shakespeare’s setting of 16th-century Vienna was a stand-in for his own London. Austin Tichenor writes that recent productions updated to the 20th century give fresh historical specificity to the play’s potentially distant and abstract ethical dilemmas.
Reframing Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure in the American South in the 1950s
In this Q&A, Helen Hayes Award-winning director Psalmayene 24 shares his first thoughts on directing Folger Theatre’s upcoming production of Measure for Measure, set in the American South in the 1950s, and how he approaches Shakespeare’s text like a new work.
Famous quotes from Measure for Measure
Sometimes called a “problem play” because of its exploration of social issues, Measure for Measure raises questions that audiences continue to debate. While the play is one of Shakespeare’s less performed plays, several quotes from it are well known.
Responding to Measure for Measure over the centuries
A variety of collection items show mixed audience responses to the play, enough so that it has been described as a “problem play.” Explore responses—by a government, by a student, and by artists—over the centuries.