Folger Theatre annually performs a three-play season of innovative productions designed to forge strong connections with modern audiences, continuing the lively legacy of Shakespearean stagecraft. While Shakespeare is central to its mission, the Theatre has produced a variety of other classical works, as well as new plays related to or inspired by Shakespeare. World premieres include Playing Juliet/Casting Othello by Caleen Sinette Jennings and Melissa Arctic by Craig Wright, and the first performances of a one-woman show by Lynn Redgrave, that later became the Tony-nominated Shakespeare for My Father.
Since 1992, Folger Theatre has been recognized for its excellence by the Helen Hayes Awards with 44 nominations and twelve awards for acting, direction, design, and production.
In addition to its own innovative productions, Folger Theatre has presented the work of the Reduced Shakespeare Company, the National Theatre of the Deaf, the Aquila Theatre Company of New York and London, the Alabama Shakespeare Festival, the Shenandoah Shakespeare Express, and Interact Theatre Company.
Among the actors who have performed at the Folger are Sir Derek Jacobi, Lynn Redgrave, Sir Ian MacKellan, Dame Diana Rigg, as well as many of Washington’s most beloved actors.
About the Elizabethan Theatre
The intimate Elizabethan Theatre is the setting for Folger Theatre productions. With its three-tiered wooden balconies, carved oak columns, and half-timbered facade, the theater evokes the courtyard of an English Renaissance inn. Overhead, a canopy represents the sky. In Shakespeare’s day, such inns often served as playhouses for traveling groups of players, who performed on a raised platform at one end while spectators gathered in the yard and on the balconies above.
About the Artistic Producer
Janet Alexander Griffin has been artistic producer of the Folger Theatre since its establishment in 1992. Under her leadership Folger Theatre has garnered a reputation for producing innovative interpretations of Shakespeare’s works as well as his contemporaries and has been recognized for its excellence by the Helen Hayes Awards. She also serves as the director of the Folger’s Division of Education and Public Programs, which produces a series of early music by the Folger Consort, poetry and fiction readings series, children’s and extensive teacher programs.
Affiliations
Folger Theatre employs members of Actors Equity Association, the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers, and United Scenic Artists. It is a member of the League of Washington Theatres and the Cultural Alliance of Greater Washington.
