Folger Theatre: As You Like It
Shakespeare’s popular comedy as a love note to DC, onstage through April 19
Welcome to the Folger!
Choose how you want to experience Shakespeare, the humanities, and our world-renowned collection.
Visit Shakespeare’s home in America
Plan your visit
Get details and reserve timed-entry passes.
Take a tour
Reserve a group tour or student experience.
Eat at Quill & Crumb
Enjoy lunch or a quick snack at our café.
About us
The Folger Shakespeare Library showcases the utility of Shakespeare and the humanities in cultivating healthy civic life.
What’s on
Join us for talks, poetry, music, and other programs.
As You Like It
Imagining Shakespeare: Mythmaking and Storytelling in the Regency Era
On View: Mandy Cano Villalobos
Our Shakespeare Exhibition
Othello and Storytelling: Who Gets to Speak?
The 2026 Eudora Welty Lecture: Kate DiCamillo
Artist Talk and Performance with Alexander D'Agostino
Adjoa Andoh
Director’s Residency: April 19-25
Adjoa Andoh MBE is most well-known among American audiences for her role as Lady Danbury in the Netflix show Bridgerton, but she is also a highly regarded Shakespearean actor and director. Learn more about the public events happening during her Director’s Residency at the Folger.
The latest from our blogs and podcast
Undergraduate Research at the Folger: The Birth of Mankinde
In this mock exhibition catalog entry for a writing class, Gabi, an undergraduate student at GWU, takes a closer look at early modern midwifery using The Birth of Mankinde.
Adjoa Andoh on Shakespeare
Adjoa Andoh shares how “swinging the lens” in Shakespeare reveals new perspectives on power, identity, and belonging, inviting audiences to see familiar stories in radically different ways.
Shakespeare's Heroines Illustrated
Victorians enjoyed viewing sets of engravings put out as “Galleries” of Shakespeare’s heroines as imagined by leading painters. Over the 19th century, they represented changing British ideas of feminine beauty and behavior.
About 'The Unbecoming of Margaret Wolf'
Introductory information on the April 2026 Folger Book Club selection, The Unbecoming of Margaret Wolf by Isa Arsén.
Shakespeare Championships
Welcome to the Shakespeare Championships bracket! Can the melancholy Dane beat the wild Prince Hal? Can the Capulets and Montagues defeat Pericles? Now is your chance to decide!
Shakespeare quotes about spring
We’re celebrating the start of spring with some of our favorite Shakespeare quotes about the season, a time of renewal, rebirth, and new beginnings.
Our collection
The First Folio
The Folger has the world’s largest collection of First Folios. Learn more about the book that gave us Shakespeare.
A majestic portrait
The Folger collection includes about 200 paintings. This portrait of Queen Elizabeth I by George Gower is dated 1579, making it the oldest painting in our collection. Two years after he completed this portrait, Gower became Serjeant Painter to the Queen, making him the most important artist in England.
Our other Elizabeth I holdings include hand-signed letters, books, and even New Year’s gift rolls detailing her holiday gifts. It is the largest collection of Elizabeth I materials in North America.
Shakespeare’s works
View the full list of plays and poems to read, search, and download our bestselling editions of Shakespeare’s works.
Shakespeare’s most popular plays
Romeo and Juliet
Macbeth
A Midsummer Night's Dream
Julius Caesar
Othello
Hamlet
Explore
What was Shakespeare's theater like?
Learn about the Globe and other London playhouses where Shakespeare’s company performed. What was it like to be an actor there, or an audience member?
Teach
How can Shakespeare help 21st-century students be stronger readers?
Our Folger Method is revolutionizing how not just Shakespeare but all literature is taught using strategies that allow all students to own – and enjoy – complex texts.
Research
If we are what we eat, what can recipes from the past tell us?
Projects like Before ‘Farm to Table’ unite scholars and practitioners in investigations into the past to shed light on what matters to us today.
Support the things you love
Your gifts make access to our collection, learning opportunities, and exciting experiences happen.
Folger Shop
Find unique gifts inspired by Shakespeare and our collection.