What's onstage at Shakespeare theaters in January

Happy New Year! Is your new year’s resolution to spend more time with Shakespeare? If it is, we’ve got you covered. Every month, we reach out to our theater partners across the US to see what Shakespeare plays they have onstage. Here’s what’s on as the new decade dawns.

In Alexandria, VA, Brave Spirits Theatre is beginning its ambitious Shakespeare’s Histories project. Over the course of its next two seasons, the company will stage both of Shakespeare’s history tetralogies (think: the ones with Falstaff and Hal now, the ones with Queen Margaret and Richard III later this year), working their way up to performing all eight plays in repertory in June and July of 2021. Brave Spirits will be the first professional American theater company to mount full productions of all of the histories and perform them together in repertory. The project kicks off this month with Richard II (onstage now) and Henry IV, Part 1 (beginning January 30).

The Atlanta Shakespeare Company’s Twelfth Night is onstage through January 26. Later in the month, the company opens Romeo and Juliet. 

The Florida Shakespeare Theater’s Macbeth tours South Florida parks, bandshells, and amphitheaters through January 26. When you live in Miami, January is the perfect time for outdoor Shakespeare. Catch this free production of “the Scottish Play” at the Barnacle Historic State Park from January 17 – 19 or Pinecrest Gardens from January 24 – 26.

Regina Aquino as Mistress Page and Amy Brabson as Mistress Ford in “The Merry Wives of Windsor” at Folger Theatre. Photo: Cameron Whitman Photography.

Here at Folger Theatre, catch The Merry Wives of Windsor, directed by Aaron Posner, through March 1. The production imagines Shakespeare’s comedy as a ’70s-era sitcom. Dramaturg Michele Osherow writes, “The plot’s insistence of a public acknowledgement and correction of the men’s unacceptable behavior made the world of the 1970s a perfect fit for this production. It was the time of the second wave of feminism, the ERA, Gloria Steinem, the National Organization for Women, the ‘51% minority,’ and articles like ‘I Want a Wife’ in the new Ms. Magazine.”

Kathryn Hunter as Timon in “Timon of Athens,” Royal Shakespeare Company, 2018. The production is being remounted at New York’s Theatre for a New Audience and DC’s Shakespeare Theatre Company. Photo: Simon Annand.

The Nashville Shakespeare Festival’s post-apocalyptic Macbeth is onstage through February 21. The production takes place 100 years after the fall of civilization; the witches are otherworldly creatures in gas masks, feeding on corruption and sickness.

At Theatre for a New Audience, Timon of Athens is onstage through February 9. The production, starring Kathryn Hunter as Timon, is a remount of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s 2018 staging. Shakespeare lovers in the Washington, DC region can see the production when it comes to the Shakespeare Theatre Company from February 20 – March 22.

Brave Spirits Theatre, Atlanta Shakespeare Company, Florida Shakespeare Theater, Nashville Shakespeare Festival, and Theatre for a New Audience are members of the Folger’s Shakespeare Theater Partnership Program.