Theater and performance

From Hamlet to A Midsummer Night’s Dream and more: try out our quiz about Shakespeare’s plays within a play, when his characters put on shows of their own.

As writer and performer Jacob Ming-Trent prepares for the world premiere of How Shakespeare Saved My Life at Folger Theatre, he delves deeper into his story—and reframes Shakespeare as an urban poet in the vein of Tupac and Biggie.

Acclaimed actor Adjoa Andoh shares how “swinging the lens” in both Bridgerton and Shakespeare reveals new perspectives on power, identity, and belonging, inviting audiences to see familiar stories in radically different ways.

Theater powerhouse Whitney White shares the music she hears when she reads Shakespeare— punk rock, the blues, gospel—and how the sounds and rhythms of Lady Macbeth, Emilia, Juliet, and Richard III inspired All Is But Fantasy.

As America celebrates its 250^th anniversary, we’re exploring the larger-than-life role played by an English playwright from more than 400 years ago in American entertainment, education, and history. Enjoy a round-up of Folger podcasts and blog posts about Shakespeare’s influence in America.

While Shakespeare was reshaping English drama, Spain’s Golden Age was producing its own theatrical revolution. Barbara Fuchs discusses the innovations of Lope de Vega and his contemporaries and Diversifying the Classics’s mission to bring plays in Spanish to new audiences.

Shakespeare’s plays are full of unforgettable women, but too often their voices are cut short. In She Speaks!, acclaimed actor Harriet Walter imagines what they might tell us if given the chance in original poems that deepen their stories.

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.