The Folger is celebrating Shakespeare—and the 400th anniversary of the printing of the First Folio—all month long. Searching for Shakespeare includes an exhibition featuring a First Folio, a world-premiere play, a citywide scavenger hunt, our annual Shakespeare’s Birthday Lecture, family programs, workshops, and more at DC Public Library locations in all eight wards of Washington, DC.
This week, Folger Theatre’s touring production of Our Verse in Time to Come sets up shop at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library. It’s a great chance to see the show, visit the First Folio, and solve one of the puzzles in our scavenger hunt all in one place.
See the First Folio at the Martin Luther King J. Memorial Library. Photo: Peggy Ryan.
Monday, April 17
Searching for Shakespeare Scavenger Hunt
Scavenger Hunt | DC Public Library locations and Little Free Libraries in all 8 wards
Without Shakespeare’s First Folio, eighteen of his plays would have been lost. Solve puzzles and hunt for clues at library locations across town to find all eighteen.
Pass the Story On: Shakespeare’s First Folio at 400
Exhibition | Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, 9:30 am – 9 pm
Come see a First Folio—the book that gave us Shakespeare—and explore how some stories are preserved while others are lost. Pass the Story On: Shakespeare’s First Folio at 400 connects Shakespeare’s friends’ efforts to preserve his work with today’s efforts to preserve stories of D.C.’s go-go and punk scenes.
Exhibition and the First Folio are located in different spaces of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library. See First Folio hours.
DC & Me Living Folio Workshop – Mt. Pleasant
Workshop | Anacostia Neighborhood Library
Session 1 (Past): 10:30 am
Session 2 (Present): 1:30 pm
Session 3 (Future): 4 pm
Be a collaborative part of the creative documentation of personal histories and community relationships in these three-part “Living History” Folio Workshops. Participants will develop and submit performance-based writings to be part of our “DC & Me” Installation series.
Join us for one, two, or all three sessions at Mt. Pleasant Neighborhood Library to discuss your community’s past, present, and future.
A special dispatch from the…
Searching for Shakespeare Scavenger Hunt
Pieces of the First Folio are hidden throughout DC, and you’re invited to help us find 18 missing plays, from Macbeth to The Comedy of Errors. Sign up to claim your fun Shakespearean name, and tell your family and friends with hashtag #FolgerHunt.
Shout out to players Casca the Content Person, Grumio the Narrow Conjurer, and Alexis the Rich Guard who are leading the way with the most discoveries as of Tuesday. Over 50 players have contributed thus far, but we’ll need plenty more to unlock the grand prize!
Hit up your neighborhood library to join the hunt! Check out a Shakespearean book or movie while you’re there.
Tuesday, April 18
Searching for Shakespeare Scavenger Hunt
Scavenger Hunt | DC Public Library locations and Little Free Libraries in all 8 wards
Pass the Story On: Shakespeare’s First Folio at 400
Exhibition | Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, 9:30 am – 9 pm
Make-a-Folio
Family Program | West End Neighborhood Library, 11 am
Find out firsthand how the First Folio and other early modern books were printed by creating elements of your own folio.
Our Verse in Time to Come
By Malik Work and Karen Ann Daniels, in collaboration with Devin E. Haqq | Directed by Vernice Miller
Performance | Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, 7 pm
Folger Theatre’s world-premiere play, by Malik Work and Karen Ann Daniels, in collaboration with Devin E. Haqq, kicks off a week of performances at DC Public Library’s Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library. An aging emcee, affectionately known as SOS, gets out of prison after 25 years only to be diagnosed with early onset dementia. Realizing it’s his last chance to reconnect with his children, he engages an old family friend and legal ally to arrange his estate and ensure his now grown twins, Vi and Will, accept it before his memory slips away for good. Told through music, hip-hop, and Shakespeare, and featuring DJ Nick the 1da.
Wednesday, April 19
Searching for Shakespeare Scavenger Hunt
Scavenger Hunt | DC Public Library locations and Little Free Libraries in all 8 wards
Pass the Story On: Shakespeare’s First Folio at 400
Exhibition | Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, 9:30 am – 9 pm
DC & Me Living Folio Workshop (Session 1 – Past)
Workshop | Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, 4 pm
In this session, the first of three at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, record the untold stories of your neighborhood’s past.
At our DC & Me Living Folio Workshop. Photo: Lloyd Wolf.
Our Verse in Time to Come
Performance | Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, 7 pm
Thursday, April 20
Searching for Shakespeare Scavenger Hunt
Scavenger Hunt | DC Public Library locations and Little Free Libraries in all 8 wards
Pass the Story On: Shakespeare’s First Folio at 400
Exhibition | Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, 9:30 am – 9 pm
DC & Me Living Folio Workshop (Session 2 – Present)
Workshop | Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, 4 pm
Shakespeare Masquerade Crafternoon
Family Program | Shepherd Park/Juanita E. Thornton Neighborhood Library, 4 pm
Create and decorate Shakespeare-inspired play masks.
Our Verse in Time to Come
Performance | Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, 7 pm
This performance is ASL interpreted.
BookTok Book Club: These Violent Delights
Discussion | Southeast Neighborhood Library, 7 pm
Southeast Neighborhood Library’s book club discusses books that are trending on TikTok. This month, join them to talk about Chloe Gong’s imaginative retelling of Romeo and Juliet set in 1920s Shanghai, featuring rival gangs and a monster in the depths of the Huangpu River.
Chloe Gong on These Violent Delights
The author reflects on retelling Romeo and Juliet in gangland Shanghai.
Friday, April 21
Searching for Shakespeare Scavenger Hunt
Scavenger Hunt | DC Public Library locations and Little Free Libraries in all 8 wards
Pass the Story On: Shakespeare’s First Folio at 400
Exhibition | Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, 9:30 am – 5:30 pm
DC & Me Living Folio Workshop (Session 3 – Future)
Workshop | Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, 4 pm
Our Verse in Time to Come
Performance | Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, 3 pm
Saturday, April 22
Searching for Shakespeare Scavenger Hunt
Scavenger Hunt | DC Public Library locations and Little Free Libraries in all 8 wards
Pass the Story On: Shakespeare’s First Folio at 400
Exhibition | Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, 9:30 am – 5:30 pm
Join us for a gallery talk at 1 pm.
Our Verse in Time to Come
Performance | Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, 11:30 am and 3 pm
Our 3 pm performance is ASL interpreted.
Shakespeare’s Birthday Lecture: Ian Smith on “Making Blackness”
Talk | Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, 5:30 pm
Join us for the Folger Institute’s annual Shakespeare’s Birthday Lecture, with celebrated scholar Dr. Ian Smith of Lafayette College. Smith examines early modern methods of manufacturing blackness onstage, using the royal entertainments of Shakespeare’s Love’s Labor’s Lost as a dramatic point of departure to expand our knowledge of early modern race.
From our Shakespeare Unlimited podcast
Ian Smith on Black Shakespeare
Ian Smith returns to Shakespeare Unlimited and talks with Barbara Bogaev about how we can develop our “racial literacy” and read race in plays like Othello, The Merchant of Venice, and Hamlet.
Othello and Blackface
On the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast, Ian Smith and Ayanna Thompson talk about Elizabethan modes of blackface—which included covering a performer’s body with dyed cloth to simulate blackness—and how Smith’s insight changes how we understand Othello.
Sunday, April 23
Searching for Shakespeare Scavenger Hunt
Scavenger Hunt | DC Public Library locations and Little Free Libraries in all 8 wards
Pass the Story On: Shakespeare’s First Folio at 400
Exhibition | Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, 1 pm – 5 pm
Join us for a gallery talk at 2 pm.
Our Verse in Time to Come
Performance | Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, 3 pm
Join DC Public Library starting at 1 pm to celebrate Shakespeare’s birthday with costume dress-up and crafty activities before seeing this performance of Our Verse in Time to Come.
Learn about our citywide festival and plan to join us for more free events.
In partnership with DC Public Library
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