Booking and details
Get TicketsDates Fri, Sep 26, 2025 at 6:30pm
Venue Folger Library
Tickets $20 with discounts for Folger Members and Subscribers
Please note: Children under the age of 4 are not permitted.
Julius X director Nicole Brewer shares her creative perspectives on the production alongside members of the creative team in an insightful pre-performance discussion moderated by Folger Theatre Artistic Director Karen Ann Daniels.
About Julius X
Award-winning writer, journalist, and podcast host Al Letson harmonizes with Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar in his retelling of the story, Julius X: A Re-envisioning of The Tragedy of Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare.
Just as Shakespeare chronicled history to create a means of understanding the events of his day, Letson highlights and reflects on contemporary challenges by blending Shakespeare with the story of Civil Rights leader Malcolm X.
Director Nicole Brewer explains, “Letson’s poetry pulses with the rhythm of revolution, weaving Shakespearean drama into the raw urgency of the Civil Rights era.” Julius X champions Shakespeare’s original text and timeless tragedy, amplified with Letson’s verse, to highlight the cyclical nature of societal strife and shared human experiences of ambition, betrayal, and brotherhood.
Participants
Nicole Brewer
Nicole Brewer (Director)*** (she/her) Folger Theatre: By The Queen (The Reading Room Festival, 2025), Julius X (The Reading Room Festival, 2023). Howard University: The House That Will Not Stand, Jonkonnu; Catholic University: Ties That Bind; DC Fringe Festival: The Hair Chronicles; Montgomery College: My aMeriCa. Regional: No Dream Deferred: Defiance of Dandelions; Baltimore Center Stage/Long Wharf Theatre: Fires in the Mirror; The Black Rep (St. Louis): Milk Like Sugar. Directed Readings: Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company: Gem of The Ocean; WAM Theatre: Letters to Kamala; Marymount University: Madres de la Revolución. Member: Stage Directors & Choreographers Society (SDC). nicolembrewer.com
Karen Ann Daniels
Karen Ann Daniels is the Director of Programming and Performance at the Folger Shakespeare Library and Artistic Director of Folger Theatre. A native San Diegan, she is an accomplished actor, director, playwright, vocalist, musician, and community organizer. Prior to joining the Folger, she was director of the Mobile Unit at The Public Theater in NYC, producing tours around all five boroughs of NYC bringing the tools of theater to incarcerated community through Mobile Unit in Corrections (MUiC).
In her prior role as the associate director of The Old Globe’s Arts Engagement department, she managed community partnerships, and created, piloted, and implemented cornerstone programs such as Globe for All, Behind the Curtain, coLAB, Community Voices, and Reflecting Shakespeare. She is a thought-leader, facilitator, and contributing architect for creating tools to help cultural institutions integrate anti-racism, equity, accessibility, community and audience engagement, and shared leadership as a long-term mission-oriented strategy for organizational growth. She is a 2021 Fellow at the Atlantic Fellows on Racial Equity, a network of leaders from the US and South Africa working to build expansive new futures in which Black people, and all people of color, are seen, valued, and respected. She served as chair of the City of Chula Vista’s Cultural Arts Commission, as well as the New California Arts Fund Leadership and Learning Committees, and is a co-producer and facilitator for the biannual Shakespeare in Prisons Conference and Network. In recent years, her creative work focused on co-creation as a composer/lyricist/playwright for musicals like gather ‘round and The Ruby in Us, centering the lives and stories of community.
