Staging Shakespeare

While Shakespeare musicals borrowed plots, characters, and situations from England’s best-known poet, they remained essentially “American.”

Born Ada Crehan in Limerick, Ireland, Ada Rehan arrived in Brooklyn with her family at age five. Her big break came in the late 1870s, when theater manager Augustin Daly hired her for his New York company.

Which Shakespeare plays are onstage this month? We check in with our theater partners Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Atlanta Shakespeare Company, Shakespeare in Detroit, Chesapeake Shakespeare Company, Commonwealth Shakespeare Company, Gamut Theatre, The Old Globe, and Oregon Shakespeare Festival.

Which Shakespeare plays are onstage this month? We check in with our theater partners Chesapeake Shakespeare Company, Atlanta Shakespeare Company, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, and Oregon Shakespeare Festival.

In this excerpt from the Shakespeare Anniversary Lecture Series at the Folger, Yale professor Joseph Roach argues that “the theater occasionally makes real history itself, materializing it for audiences by its own expressive means, especially so during an age of…

Cincy Shakes and Seattle Shakespeare adapt the Henry VI plays, Nashville presents a ’90s Romeo and Juliet, and Nebraska teams up with the Omaha Symphony.

Richard (Drew Cortese) and the Duke of York (Remy Brettell) in Richard III, directed by Robert Richmond, Folger Theatre, 2014. Photo by Teresa Wood. This is an excerpt from Yale professor Joseph Roach’s talk for the Shakespeare Anniversary Lecture Series…

If you’re going to see a performance of The Winter’s Tale, perhaps you’ve read the play (or maybe just the plot summary)—or maybe you’re going in cold. So, what should you look for in this Shakespeare play?

In this special anniversary year for Shakespeare, the Folger has commissioned Caroline Shaw to compose a new vocal piece inspired by The Tempest. Shaw, who has toured with Kanye West and is the youngest person to win the Pulitzer Prize…

Soldiers returning home. Armies clashing in a bloody struggle for power. Government officials abusing their authority. These are the Shakespeare characters populating the post-election landscape at our theater partners around the U.S. this month. Henry VI Two of the Folger’s…

In Shakespeare’s Love’s Labor’s Lost, four friends forswear women so that they can focus on their studies. But, of course, as soon as they do, four lovely ladies enter their lives. Oh, what to do? Romance and comedy ensue. Four of our…

Don’t say “Macbeth” in a theater, or you’ll be cursed. Or at least that’s how the old superstition goes. That’s why you’ll often hear actors refer to it as “The Scottish Play.” It’s one of many stories connected with the performance…