Shakespeare on stage in 100 years: Karen Ann Daniels on the next century of Folger artistic programming

As we near the end of 2025, we want to share with our audiences a first glimpse at ideas for the upcoming year from a few members of the Folger’s leadership team. As we reflect on the past 18 months — including the completion of our renovations, reopening, and re-imagining how the Folger connects people to Shakespeare — we are excited about the possibilities ahead of us.

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Karen Ann Daniels, Director of Programing and Performance and Artistic Director of Folger Theatre, reflects on the successes of the last season of Folger’s artistic programming and looks ahead to what’s coming up next season and in the next century of the Folger’s history. 

As the Folger Shakespeare Library approaches its 100th anniversary in 2032, Karen Ann Daniels, Director of Programing and Performance and Artistic Director of Folger Theatre, is thinking in two directions at once—looking back to honor a hundred years of arts and humanities at the Folger while setting the stage for the next century. Now in her fifth year at the Folger, Daniels considers her main role as “stewarding the artistic vision and creations of the Folger, forging deeper connections to the collection, to Shakespeare, to the larger creative community, and to one’s artistic self.”

This past year offered no shortage of opportunities for that kind of creative exploration and meaningful collaboration, such as the first collaboration between Folger Consort and the O. B. Hardison Poetry Series, a world premiere adaptation of Hamlet by one of America’s most popular playwrights, a joyful production of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, and a season of literary readings celebrating local poets.

Folger Theatre’s Reading Room Festival

For Daniels, one standout achievement for Folger Theatre was the Reading Room Festival, which brings together theater artists, scholars and critics, and audiences in a dynamic celebration of storytelling and theatrical conversation.

“I feel like the Reading Room Festival is the essence of what I believe art can do, and it’s a vehicle to help us really welcome more people into the Folger as artists,” she shares. “Being able to tell some of the stories during this crazy time that we’re living in—that’s how we’ve defined ways of being cultural anchors.”

For the past three years, the Reading Room Festival has introduced audiences to new plays that have gone on to full-scale Folger Theatre productions, including the world premiere of Lauren M. Gunderson’s A Room in the Castle, co-produced with Cincinnati Shakespeare Company, Al Letson’s Julius X: A Re-envisioning of The Tragedy of Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare and Jacob Ming-Trent’s How Shakespeare Saved My Life, co-commissioned by Red Bull Theater and co-produced by Berkeley Repertory Theatre and Red Bull Theater, with performances slated at all three theaters.

In addition to Folger Theatre productions, Sarah Mantell’s Everything That Never Happened, an adaptation of The Merchant of Venice, was produced by Baltimore Center Stage last season. The fourth festival kicks off at the end of January with four new plays, workshops and talks, and opportunities for theater makers and theater lovers to mingle and share ideas.

What’s next at the Folger?

Looking ahead to next season, Daniels is excited to celebrate several major milestones—Folger Consort’s 50th season, more than 35 years of Folger Theatre, and the 58th year of the O.B. Hardison Poetry Series. These anniversaries mark decades of artistic achievement and staging the biggest stories of Shakespeare’s canon and invite opportunities to innovate. “I’m always interested in working with some artists that we haven’t had a chance to collaborate with before,” she says about future collaborations with theater makers who reimagine Shakespeare’s works in new ways and for new audiences.

Looking ahead even further, Daniels wonders what the next century of the Folger will look like. “What’s the story of this place? Who have we been? But even more importantly, who are we going to become in the next 100 years? We’re in this beautiful, blessed position to set that up. It’s like writing your New Year’s resolutions.”