Is seeing more theater part of your New Year’s resolutions? Check out what’s playing this month at our theater partners. There’s something for everyone, young and old. What do you hope to see?
Our thoughts are with our theater partners at Theatricum Botanicum and everyone affected by the California wildfires.
At the Folger
We’re kicking off 2025 with a free Folger Friday New Year Wellness Celebration with sound bath meditation, Tai Chi, chair yoga, and manifestation journaling workshops on January 17. The day before, on January 16, catch up with new research in a Folger Salon with Shaul Bassi and Sylvia Korman; Jami Nakamura Lin in an author talk with Jami Nakamura Lin and reading of The Girls of Godzilla, Illinois; and a panel conversation about composer Edmond Dédé and his long-lost magnum opus Morgiane, the first known opera by a Black American composer, which is receiving its world premiere—and visitors can see the handwritten manuscript of the opera on exhibit through March 2. We end the month with Folger Theatre’s third annual Reading Room Festival, January 30––February 2, with new work and conversations inspired by or in response to the plays of William Shakespeare. The festival kicks off with The Old Globe’s Artistic Director Barry Edelstein on Henry 6: sharing how he adapted and directed Shakespeare’s rarely produced Henry VI, Parts I, 2, and 3, turning it into a theatrical event with a cast and crew of over a thousand and bringing their community-based work even closer to the center of the organization. The next three days are filled with play readings— Valor, Agravio y Mujer (The Courage to Right a Woman’s Wrongs) by Ana Caro Mallén de Soto, adapted by Julissa Contreras; Whitney White’s By the Queen; and a bilingual Hamlet, adapted by Reynaldo Piniella and Emily Lyon, with Spanish translation by Christin Eve Cato. Plus discussions, workshops, and celebrations as artists, scholars, critics, and audiences collaboratively explore the multifaceted nature of Shakespeare’s stories.
American Players Theatre
APT welcomes back Winter Words, its popular play-reading series. Artists and audiences alike explore new-to-them stories, with a laser-focus on language. The 2025 series of one-night only readings begin with Passions and Propriety, a sensible farce, a brand new play written and directed by David Daniel, Core Company actor and director of the 2025 production of A Midsummer Night Dream. The reading is January 27, with readings of other plays on February 10, March 3 and 31.
Atlanta Shakespeare Company
Can four young men attempt to honor their pledge to avoid love, food, drink and sleep, for the sake of becoming more intellectual and contemplative? Not in Shakespeare’s world!
In Love’s Labor’s Lost, after four young women arrive on the scene, the result is far from a blissful pondering of noble deeds and nobler thoughts in this lyrical comedy. On stage through January 26.
Chicago Shakespeare Theater
Pull up a chair with Marie, Bea, Miriam, Aminata, and Ndidi for Jaja’s African Hair Braiding. In this bustling Harlem hotspot where West African immigrant braiders work their magic, love blossoms, dreams flourish, and secrets are revealed. But uncertainty simmers below the surface, and this tight-knit community must confront what it means to be an outsider on the edge of the place they call home. Written by Tony-nominated Ghanaian-American playwright Jocelyn Bioh (School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play) and directed by Chicago’s own award-winning director Whitney White, this laugh-out-loud comedic gem “is equally affecting as it is hilarious,” hails Entertainment Weekly. On stage January 14–February 2.
Emmy-nominated writer and actor Michael Shayan (Discovery’s The Book of Queer, HBO’s We’re Here) portrays his larger-than-life mother in a radiant celebration of joy and resilience. In Avaaz, meet Roya, our fabulous hostess, as she welcomes you into her home to celebrate Nowruz, the Iranian New Year. She’s preparing a feast, but the main attraction is the tale of her great American journey as an Iranian-Jewish immigrant from Tehran to “Tehran-geles,” California. Get ready for the time of your life with this hilarious and heartfelt tribute to the playwright’s mother, exuberantly portrayed by the person who knows her best—her son. Performances January 21–February 9.
Cincinnati Shakespeare Company
Cincy Shakes is thrilled to be working with Folger Theatre to co-produce Lauren M. Gunderson’s A Room in the Castle, a parallel retelling of Hamlet from Ophelia and Gertrude’s perspectives.
Ophelia’s narrative begins with the blossoming of a secret romance with Hamlet, filled with promise and youthful passion. As the court’s intrigue deepens, Ophelia and Gertrude find themselves ensnared in a web of political machinations and familial expectations, struggling to maintain power and agency. Will their ending be a confirmation of Shakespeare’s original or a liberation from it?
On stage at Cincinnati Shakespeare Company January 24–February 9.
Folger Theatre performances March 4–April 6.
Gamut Theatre Group
A trio of programs for audiences young and old kick off 2025, beginning with the Popcorn Hat Players production of Rumpelstiltskin, January 15–February 1. Bragging, lying, and tom-foolery get the Miller’s daughter stuck in a pickle she can’t spin into gold without some help from the most unlikely of places. Much Ado About Nothing, an education engagement production for ages 12 and up, bridges the most famous scenes from the play together into an easy-to-understand story performed by eight highly–talented actors, January 17–19. The Stage Door Series returns with a staged reading of The Picture of Dorian Gray in an original script by Francesca Amendolia adapted from Oscar Wilde’s novel, January 24–26.
The Old Globe
Appropriate, the comic drama from Pulitzer Prize finalist Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, gathers the estranged siblings of the Lafayette family to settle their late father’s Arkansas estate. Amid the clutter they uncover a shocking relic, forcing them to confront long-buried secrets and decades of resentment. As tensions boil over and the cicadas roar, the family faces unsettling truths about their past and how it has shaped them.
Directed by Steve H. Broadnax III (Broadway’s Thoughts of a Colored Man), this Tony Award–winning play is a searing and bitingly funny portrait of family, history, and legacy.
Performances January 25–February 23.
Shakespeare Dallas
Measure for Measure, directed by Jenni Stewart at The Norma Young Arena Stage at Theatre Three, marks Shakespeare Dallas’ first indoor winter production since 2020.
Considered one of Shakespeare’s “tragicomedies” due to the shift in tone, the play follows a Duke providing divine intervention as Vienna is beset with brothels and loose morality.
Performances through January 26.
American Players Theater, Atlanta Shakespeare Company, Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Cincinnati Shakespeare Company, Folger Theatre, Gamut Theatre Group, The Old Globe, and Shakespeare Dallas are members of the Folger’s Theater Partnership Program.
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