Theater and performance

Marlowe and Shakespeare were both born in 1564, rising from working-class origins to find success in the new world of the theater. But before Shakespeare transformed English drama, Marlowe had already done so.

The Improvised Shakespeare Company has been creating hilarious Shakespearean masterpieces—from an audience suggestion of a title of a show that has never been written—for 20 years. Austin Tichenor shares how they do it.

Carla Della Gatta looks at the extraordinary mix of Latinx-inspired productions and adaptations performed on stages, large and small, across the United States.

Discover books, costume sketches, and theatrical props for Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar in the Folger collection along with items from Folger Theatre’s production of Al Letson’s Julius X: A Re-envisioning of The Tragedy of Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare. 

Journalist, playwright, and poet Al Letson talks about Julius X, his play that borrows lines, characters, and plot from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar to tell the story of Malcolm X. He shares the play’s origins and his approach to creating art.

Check out what’s playing at our Shakespeare theater partners this September.

Explore First Folios owned by two 17th-century women, a prop dagger used by a leading actress of the late 19th century, and scripts and programs from a 20th-century women’s theater in Japan that’s still performing Shakespeare today.

Rosa Joshi’s bold staging of Julius Caesar at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, performed entirely by women and nonbinary actors, reframes Shakespeare’s political thriller for today’s fight against autocracy.

See what’s playing at our Shakespeare Theater Partners around the country this August.

A six-episode podcast drops you inside Hamlet from the prince’s POV. Director Jeremy McCarter explains how 21st-century technology unlocked a fresh take on Shakespeare’s tragedy.

See what’s playing at our Shakespeare Theater Partners around the country this July.

When theaters shut down during COVID, actors Sam Crane and Mark Oosterveen performed Hamlet inside Grand Theft Auto Online. Filmmaker Pinny Grylls captured it all in a documentary, Grand Theft Hamlet.