Anti-Racism Conversation: Casting Shakespeare in a Contemporary World
Booking and details
Dates Sat, Jan 27, 2024, 10am
Venue
Folger Haskell Center
Across the street from Folger Theatre
Tickets $20; $15 for Members and Subscribers ($35 - Festival Pass)
Duration 1 hour
What are the implications of multicultural casting using 400-year-old texts that were initially written for and performed only by white European men? Kaja Dunn, Associate Professor at Carnegie Mellon University and Folger Theatre’s Resident Intimacy and Cultural Consultant, leads a conversation about casting Shakespeare’s plays in today’s world, examining color-blind casting, societal casting, conceptual casting, and cross-cultural casting.
Festival Pass – $35
Access to all Festival open rehearsals, readings, screenings, and conversations.
All-Access Pass – $75
Everything in the Festival Pass, plus invitations to the opening and closing parties.
Students – Free admission to readings and conversations
Admitted free one-half hour before event start time, with a valid ID
Kaja Dunn
Kaja Dunn (Director) Folger Theatre and Cincinnati Shakespeare Company: A Room in the Castle; Cape Fear Regional Theatre: No Child; California Center for the Arts: Hairalouges; Old Globe: Playwrights Project: Plays by Young Writers Festival: Staged Readings or Pandemic Performances; Triad Stage: Freedom Hill; Studios of Key West and North Carolina Black Rep: Jeffery Manor; Playmakers Rep: Edges of Time (reading), Noms De Guerre. University of North Carolina College: Blues for an Alabama Sky, Suessical, Twighlight: Los Angeles, As It Is In Heaven; Cal State, San Marcos: Telling Stories. Carnegie Mellon University: Associate Professor.
Jorge Acevedo
Jorge Acevedo he/him (Casting Director) SIGNATURE: Casting Director & Manager of Artistic Programs: RENT, Daphne’s Dive, She Loves Me, The Upstairs Department, The Color Purple, No Place to Go, Into the Woods, Which Way to the Stage, Selling Kabul, Pacific Overtures, Passing Strange, Sweeney Todd, The Bridges of Madison County, King of the Yees, Ragtime; Casting & Executive Coordinator: Simply Sondheim, Daniel J. Watts’ The Jam: Only Child, Midnight at The Never Get, After Midnight, Detroit 67. DC AREA: The Kennedy Center: The Dragon King’s Daughter; The Mortification of Fovea Munson; Shakespeare Theatre Company: The Amen Corner; Working In DC: Working: A Musical. OTHER: Casting Directive – Broadway for Racial Justice: Inaugural Class. TEDxBroadway: Young Professionals Program, 2018. EDUCATION: Wagner College. @TheeJorgeAvocado.
Danica Rodriguez
Danica Rodriguez (Casting Director) (she/her) Folger Theatre: Our Verse in Time to Come. New York: Off-Broadway: The Public Theater: cullud wattah*, Romeo y Julieta, Soft Power, for colored girls…, Much Ado About Nothing (Shakespeare in the Park), Mojada, Ain’t No Mo’*. Regional: Shakespeare Theatre Company: Uncle Vanya, Kunene & The King, Leopoldstadt, Babbitt, Comedy of Errors, The Matchbox Magic Flute, Macbeth, The Lehman Trilogy, As You Like It, Macbeth In Stride, Evita, Here There Are Blueberries, King Lear, Jane Anger, Much Ado About Nothing, Red Velvet, Our Town, The Merchant of Venice;
Nikkole Salter
Nikkole Salter* (Calpurnia) (she/her) Folger Theatre: By the Queen (The Reading Room Festival, 2025); Arena Stage: Stick Fly, We are Gathered; Baltimore Center Stage: The Christians, Mosaic Theatre Company: The Confederates; Round House Theatre Company: Jumping Off Point; Shakespeare theatre Company: Macbeth; Studio Theatre: Jitney. Regional: Berkeley Repertory Theatre; Goodman Theatre, Huntington Theatre Company, Kansas City Repertory, Kirk Douglas Theatre, Luna Stage, Yale Repertory Theatre, etc. Broadway: Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts: The Great Society. Off-Broadway: DR2 Theatre: Gloria: A Life; Playwrights Horizons: Inked Baby; Primary Stages/Perry Street Theatre: In the Continuum. Television: The Unit, New Amsterdam, Godfather of Harlem. Film: The Architect, Love and Communication, Last Night, Pride and Glory. Voiceover: Midnight Club: Los Angeles (Rockstar Games). Awards: Helen Hayes, Outer Critics Circle, OBIE, AUDELCO, IRNE, Acclaim. Education: New York University, MFA; Howard University, BFA. nikkolesalter.com