Staging Shakespeare

Shakespeare became the Bard of Avon, the English national poet, in the roughly two hundred years following his death in 1616. During this period, his plays were constantly staged in theaters throughout the British Isles and their colonies—but often in…

Shakespeare Unlimited: Episode 151 The COVID-19 pandemic has been devastating to theater in the United States. Broadway and regional theaters are dark, and Shakespeare festivals across the country have cancelled their seasons. So it wasn’t a surprise when The Public…

Check out a mix of innovative online programming and safely socially-distanced in-person performances from Shakespeare companies across the US.

There are philosophical travesties, which use absurdity to further explore the ideas Shakespeare raised in his plays. And there are popular travesties, which are substantially less faithful to Shakespeare’s original, trafficking in the most well-known touchstones of the plays. Explore…

Double-casting is a theater technique (as opposed to a literary one) that creates a meta-narrative, transforming a large-cast play into a present-tense adventure. Actors swapping costumes and changing roles (and sometimes genders) becomes part of the thrilling ride, and theater’s…

Imagine a King Lear that cut the character of the Fool, created a romance between Edgar and Cordelia, and featured a happy ending in which Lear and Cordelia both live. That was the most popular version of Shakespeare’s play for…

Debra Ann Byrd writes about encountering an early female Othello in the Folger collection and developing her memoir and solo show, Becoming Othello.

‘American Moor’ playwright and actor Keith Hamilton Cobb writes about speaking back to Shakespeare, White American Theater, and frameworks of privilege.

Wondering where you’ll find Shakespeare this summer? We’ve gathered a wealth of online performances, conversations, and programs from the Folger’s theater partners that you can check out in July and August.

Check out performances, conversations, classes, and podcasts available online in June from Shakespeare theaters all across the country.

Suddenly, there’s a lot of Shakespeare available online. Here are our tips for exploring the wealth of films, Zoom readings, online classes, and more in the month of May.

William Capon. Theatre Royal Haymarket. August 1803. Folger Shakespeare Library. During a time when performing Shakespeare in London was a legal right belonging only to certain theaters, the Haymarket theater’s rise to greatness is directly linked to its struggle to…