Folger Theatre Announces Plays and Playwrights for Third Annual Reading Room Festival, a Four-Day Celebration of Staged Readings in Conversation with Shakespeare

All-Access Passes for the readings and a vibrant lineup of immersive and experimental events go on sale today

Folger Theatre at the Folger Shakespeare Library announces the plays and playwrights for the third annual Reading Room Festival, a four-day festival of staged readings, panel discussions, workshops, and community celebrations. Shakespeare serves as a catalyst for today’s playwrights—in a collaborative community, artists, critics, and scholars unite and actively engage in creating new narratives that speak to our time. The Reading Room Festival runs from Thursday, January 30 through Sunday, February 2, 2025, at the Folger. Playwrights and adaptors of Shakespeare’s works include Barry Edelstein, Emily Lyon, Reynaldo Piniella, and Whitney White.

Across the United States, there are over 200 theaters and festivals that primarily focus on the works of Shakespeare, often adapting his works for contemporary audiences. Shakespeare can be a springboard for the stories that playwrights want to tell, and they need places where they can advance their work. The Folger is uniquely situated within the USA as both a major research library with rare archival materials and a producing theater company. Like the theater companies of Shakespeare’s time, the Reading Room Festival aims to foster a highly collaborative environment. Playwrights have opportunities to access the Folger’s collection; their works are developed and supported by actors who bring their skills of interpreting text, dramaturgs who bridge the past and present, directors who lead productions, scholars and critics to offer informed commentary, and audiences have the chance for exploration, collaboration, and experimentation of their own.

“This year’s playwrights represent some of the field’s leading artistic voices on Shakespeare’s theatrical work in the US,” says Karen Ann Daniels, Folger Director of Programming and Performance and Artistic Director of Folger Theatre. “Whitney is a renaissance artist herself who embraces music, text, and character in dynamic and prolific ways. There are few artists like her who make Shakespeare feel vital and urgent. Barry’s Henry 6 project was ambitious to begin with, but the inclusion of community in its development and production is a new model for how Shakespeare can continue to find meaning and connection in everyday people’s lives. Our partnership with Expand the Canon is taking the festival in a new direction—Spanish Golden Age writer Ana Caro will introduce both artists and audiences to a contemporary writer of Shakespeare’s time, revealing anew a feminine perspective. Reynaldo and Emily’s thoughtful bilingual adaptation of Hamlet makes for an exciting third festival lineup.”

The four plays for this year’s Reading Room Festival include: a presentation of Henry 6 by William Shakespeare and adapted and directed by Barry Edelstein on Thursday, January 30; a staged reading of Valor, Agravio y Mujer (The Courage to Right ae Woman’s Wrongs) by Ana Caro Mallén de Soto on Friday, January 31; a staged reading of By the Queen by Whitney White on Saturday, February 1; and a staged reading of Hamlet by Emily Lyon and Reynaldo Piniella on Sunday, February 2. Each reading will be followed by a moderated conversation and audience Q&A, offering insights into the creative processes behind these innovative new works.

In the Old Globe’s summer 2024 world premiere production of Henry 6, Artistic Director Barry Edelstein adapted Shakespeare’s Henriad trilogy (Henry VI Parts I, II, and III) into two plays: Part One: Flowers and France and Part Two: Riot and Reckoning. In this ambitious project, Edelstein worked with a cast and crew of over 1,000 San Diegans, including over 50 community-based nonprofits and organizations in Southern California for this epic multimedia production that received high praise as “propulsive excitement” (Los Angeles Times). At the Reading Room Festival, Edelstein will share selections from Henry 6 and discuss the process for this community-invested adaptation and performance on Thursday, January 30.

The staged reading of Valor, Agravio y Mujer (The Courage to Right a Woman’s Wrongs) celebrates the writing of Ana Caro Mallén de Soto, a woman playwright of the Spanish Golden Age who was a contemporary of Shakespeare, on Friday, January 31. This 17^th century Spanish comedy showcases the energy, humor, and social commentary about gender and power often seen in Mallén’s works. This work features a bilingual text in partnership with Expand the Canon, which researches and celebrates classic plays by historic women and gender-expansive writers.

A staged reading of By the Queen by Tony Award-nominated and Obie Award-winning playwright and director Whitney White (director, JaJa’s African Hair Braiding) reframes the story of Shakespeare’s Queen Margaret, a survivor in a male-dominated world of power, politics, and betrayal, on Saturday, February 1. White gives this towering figure the voice she deserves in this play, which has been performed at Trinity Repertory Theatre and Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival.

Set against the vibrant linguistic backdrop of present-day New York City, this Hamlet is adapted by Emily Lyon and Reynaldo Piniella, with Spanish translations by Christin Eve Cato and additional Anishinaabe translations by Ty Defoe. By placing a Black Latinx Hamlet at the center of the narrative, the production weaves together Shakespeare’s timeless tale of revenge and madness with a contemporary multicultural narrative reflecting the preoccupations of today’s urban America.

Works presented at the Reading Room Festival are each at different points of their creative journey, and a goal of the Festival is that these plays will later be staged at the Folger or regional American theaters. Several Reading Room Festival presentations have enjoyed exciting post-Festival outings. Folger Theatre commissioned and toured Our Verse in Time to Come in the Spring of 2023 in honor of the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s First Folio, and in March 2025, Lauren M. Gunderson’s A Room in the Castle, which was first workshopped at the inaugural festival in 2023, will have its world premiere in a co-production with Folger Theatre and Cincinnati Shakespeare Company. Everything That Never Happened by Sarah Mantell opens at Baltimore Center Stage later this winter.

Reading Room Festival All-Access Passes will become available for Folger members and subscribers on December 5 at 12 pm; they go on sale to the public on December 7 at 12 pm. All-Access Passes include all four staged readings and access to a vibrant lineup of immersive and experimental events, including open rehearsals, workshops led by artists and scholars, post-show conversations facilitated by critics and scholars, panel discussions with artistic leaders and scholars, and community celebrations. Tickets for individual staged readings will go on sale in January. Reading Room Festival All-Access Passes are available at folger.edu/readingroom or by contacting the Folger box office at (202) 544-7077. Early bird passes are $125 through December 31; passes purchased January 1 and after are $150.

STAGED READINGS

HENRY 6
by William Shakespeare
Adapted and directed by Barry Edelstein
Presentation: Thursday, January 30, 7:30pm

Artistic Director Barry Edelstein shares selections and commentary on The Old Globe’s process of creating Henry 6, which turns the rarely produced Henry VI, Parts I, II, and III into a thrilling two-part event. Two ruling families of England, the Yorks and the Lancasters, fight each other in a high-stakes civil war for power known as the Wars of the Roses. These adaptations include everything people love about the Bard—ingenious language, vibrant characters, breathtaking battles, and sweeping crowd scenes—as they explore the impact of national politics on individual lives. This will be followed by a post-show conversation with the creative team who will discuss their process of inviting communities into the process of adapting and performing Henry 6.

VALOR, AGRAVIO Y MUJER (The Courage to Right a Woman’s Wrongs)
by Ana Caro Mallén de Soto
Presented in association with Expand the Canon
Reading: Friday, January 31, 8pm

This play is a celebration of women’s agency, written by Shakespeare’s Spanish contemporary Ana Caro Mallén de Soto. Following a scorned heroine determined to carry out a revenge tragedy-turned-comedy, this play includes hallmarks familiar to Shakespeare’s writing, including cross dressing, love triangles, swordplay, and soaring verse. Doña Leonora dresses like a man and crosses Europe to get revenge on her ungrateful ex who left her unmarriageable. Along the way, she manipulates others in her sphere causing confusion and antics – and ends up with a triumph that she deems better than any murder.

Expand the Canon researches and celebrates classic plays by historic women and gender-expansive writers—and is a call to action to produce them. They’ve partnered with and inspired more than 20 companies across the country to teach and perform these works. Find all 52 curated plays (spanning 1600-1990, 16 countries, and 11 languages) at expandthecanon.com.

BY THE QUEEN
by Whitney White
Reading: Saturday, February 1, 8pm

From her roots as a provincial princess of France, to her ascension to the throne of England and her eventual downfall, Queen Margaret is one of the most complicated, fascinating, and thrilling characters in Shakespeare’s works. She is a warrior, a wife, a politician, a mother… and this dynamic new drama, lifted and remixed from the text of Henry VI and Richard III, finally gives her story the telling it deserves.

HAMLET
by William Shakespeare
Adapted by Reynaldo Piniella and Emily Lyon
Spanish translation by Christin Eve Cato
Additional Anishinaabe translations by Ty Defoe
Reading: Sunday, February 2, 4pm

Hamlet is a Black, Latinx prince in this bilingual reimagining of Shakespeare’s tragedy, with text infused by the Spanish spoken in present-day New York City.

PLAYWRIGHTS AND ADAPTORS
 

Barry Edelstein (Erna Finci Viterbi Artistic Director at the Old Globe) is a stage director, producer, author, and educator. His directing credits at the Old Globe include The Winter’s Tale, Othello, The Twenty-Seventh Man, the world premiere of Rain, Picasso at the Lapin Agile, Hamlet, the world premiere of The Wanderers, the American premiere of Life After, Romeo and Juliet, the world premiere of What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank, the two-part epic Henry 6, and, during the pandemic, Hamlet: On the Radio. He also directed All’s Well That Ends Well as the inaugural production of the Globe for All community tour, and he oversees the Globe’s Classical Directing Fellowship program. In addition to his recent Globe credits, he directed The Tempest with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at Walt Disney Concert Hall in 2018 and The Wanderers Off-Broadway with Roundabout Theatre Company in 2023. As Director of the Shakespeare Initiative at the Public Theater (2008–2012), Edelstein oversaw all of the company’s Shakespearean productions as well as its educational, community outreach, and artist-training programs. At the Public, he staged the world premiere of The Twenty-Seventh Man, Julius Caesar, The Merchant of Venice, Timon of Athens, and Steve Martin’s WASP and Other Plays. He was also Associate Producer of the Public’s Broadway production of The Merchant of Venice starring Al Pacino. From 1998 to 2003 he was Artistic Director of Classic Stage Company. His book Thinking Shakespeare is the standard text on American Shakespearean acting. He is also the author of Bardisms: Shakespeare for All Occasions. His podcast Where There’s a Will: Finding Shakespeare was produced by the Globe and Pushkin Industries. He is a graduate of Tufts University and the University of Oxford, where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar.

Emily Lyon is a director, dramaturg, and artistic director that carves out the humor and authenticity in new and classic texts. She co-created, leads, and curates Expand the Canon––a call to action to include a wide range of historic women and gender-expansive writers in the canon of classics––as Artistic Director. As a freelance director, Lyon has directed nine world premieres, including Diana Ly’s Sex and the Abbey (The Brick), and has worked with the Folger Theatre, Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, Geva Theatre, the Old Globe, LaMaMa, Yale Rep, the Royal Shakespeare Company, University of Michigan, and others. As a dramaturg, she’s worked with writers on shaping over 25 new plays, including the world premiere of Kate Hamill’s Sense & Sensibility, and editing classical texts, including the Expand the Canon plays and The Tempest for Shakespeare in the Park. Find out more at EmilyALyon.com, and ExpandTheCanon.com.

Ana Caro Mallén de Soto (ca.1601–ca.1645) was one of the few women writers of the Spanish Golden Age, whose talent was celebrated in print by eminent playwrights and novelists of her day. She spent much of her time in Seville and Madrid, where literature and theater thrived. For several years, she was able to make a living through her work as a playwright writing for Spain’s public playhouses and public festivities. Unfortunately, only two of her plays have survived: a chivalric story entitled El conde Partinuplés and Valor, Agravio y Mujer, which we translate as The Courage to Right a Woman’s Wrongs.

Reynaldo Piniella (he/him) is an actor, writer, activist and educator from East New York, Brooklyn. In 2021, he was in the acting company of two Broadway shows at the same time: Thoughts of a Colored Man and Trouble in Mind. His Off-Broadway acting credits include work at Signature Theatre Company, the Public Theater, the Working Theater, Theatre for a New Audience (TFANA), and Rattlestick Theater, regionally with Baltimore Center Stage, Syracuse Stage, Long Wharf Theatre, the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center, Cleveland Play House, NY Stage and Film, Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, St. Louis Shakespeare Festival, and Actors Theatre of Louisville, and internationally with the Sundance Theatre Lab in Morocco and NEAP Fest in Rio de Janeiro. TV credits include Reservation Dogs, Sneaky Pete, Law & Order: SVU, The Carrie Diaries, Flesh & Bone, Blue Bloods, Greenleaf, Louie, NYC 22, Us & Them, and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Film: Madeline’s Madeline (Sundance Film Fest, Showtime), Shadows (HBO Max) and Broken City (20th Century FOX). His co-created bilingual Spanish-English Hamlet has been developed at Folger Theatre, the Public Theater, the Classical Theatre of Harlem, and the Acting Company. He is an alum of New Victory Theater’s LabWorks, All for One Theater’s Solo Collective, the Civilians’ R&D Group, and a former Artist-in-Residence at Hi-ARTS, the cell theatre, Abingdon Theatre Company, and Culture Lab LIC. He has received fellowships from Theatre Communications Group, the National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures, Weeksville Heritage Center, and the All Stars Project. @ReynaldoRey. www.reynaldopiniella.com

Whitney White is an Obie and Lilly Award–winning director, actor, and musician based in Brooklyn, New York. She is a Tony Award nominee, a recipient of the Susan Stroman Directing award, an Artistic Associate at the Roundabout, an Associate Artistic Director at Shakespeare Theatre Company and part of the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative. Her original musical Definition was part of the 2019 Sundance Theatre Lab, and her four-part musical exploration of Shakespeare’s Women and ambition is currently under commission with the American Repertory Theater in Boston and the Royal Shakespeare Company. She has developed work with: Manhattan Theatre Club, The Public Theatre, Ars Nova, The Drama League, Roundabout, New York Theatre Workshop, The Lark, The Movement, Jack, Bard College, NYU Tisch, Juilliard, Princeton, SUNY Purchase, South Oxford, Luna Stage and more. Whitney was a staff writer on Boots Riley’s I’M A VIRGO (Amazon, Media Res). Whitney is a believer in collaborative processes and new forms. Her musical discipline is rooted in indie-soul, and rock. She is passionate about black stories, reconstructing classics, stories for and about women, genre-defying multimedia work and film. Past fellowships include: New York Theatre Workshop 2050 Fellowship, Ars Nova’s Makers Lab, Colt Coeur and the Drama League. MFA Acting: Brown University/Trinity Rep, BA Political Science, Certificate in Musical Theatre: Northwestern University.

About Folger Shakespeare Library:
       

The Folger Shakespeare Library makes Shakespeare’s stories and the world in which he lived accessible. Anchored by the world’s largest Shakespeare collection, the Folger is a place where curiosity and creativity are embraced, and conversation is always encouraged. Visitors to the Folger can choose how they want to experience the arts and humanities, from interactive exhibitions to captivating performances, and from path-breaking research to transformative educational programming. The Folger welcomes everyone to connect in their own way—from communities throughout Washington, DC, to communities across the globe. Learn more at www.folger.edu.

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