Booking and details
Dates Fri, Oct 4, 2024 at 6:30pm
Tickets $25 with discounts for Folger Members and Subscribers
Please note: Children under the age of 4 are not permitted.
Romeo and Juliet director Raymond O. Caldwell, costume designer Jeannette Christensen, and scenic designer Jonathan Dahm Robertson share their creative perspectives on the production in an insightful pre-performance discussion moderated by Folger Theatre Artistic Director Karen Ann Daniels.
About Romeo and Juliet
Shakespeare’s timeless story of star-crossed lovers is also a story of the politics of warring families and the violence that consumes them. When all the systems meant to protect and guide a pair of young lovers—familial, religious, and governmental—fail them, can they find a way to safeguard their future despite the chaos around them?
Participants
Raymond O. Caldwell
Raymond O. Caldwell (Director) Folger Theatre: Rap Monologues; Kennedy Center: Look Both Ways, All the Way Live; Theater Alliance: Poetry for the People (Helen Hayes Award), Day of Absence, Blood at the Root (Helen Hayes Award); 1st Stage: Fly me to the Sun; Signature Theatre: Passing Strange; Mosaic Theater: One in Two, Les Deux Noirs; Round House Theatre: Nollywood Dreams; Olney Theater Center: The Thanksgiving Play, The Diary of Anne Frank; Imagination Stage: Zomo the Rabbit ; SolasNua: The Frederick Douglass Project; theHegira: In the Blood. Regional: The Contemporary Theatre of Ohio: Skeleton Crew. Opera: Kennedy Center: The Cartography Project. Film: The Blackest Battle, City in Transition: The Quadrant Series, Sleep Deprivation Chamber, A Protest in 8. Artistic Leadership: Theater Alliance. 2023 SDCF Zelda Fichandler Award Recipient. www.raymondocaldwell.com
Jeannette Christensen
Jeannette Christensen (Costume Designer) Folger Theatre: Metamorphoses (Associate Costume Designer), Our Verse in Time to Come, The Merry Wives of Windsor (Associate Costume Designer), Amadeus (Associate Costume Designer). GALA Hispanic Theatre: On Your Feet! The Story of Emilio and Gloria Estefan (World Premiere in Spanish; Helen Hayes Award Outstanding Costume Design); The Kennedy Center/ Kennedy Center Theater for Young Audiences: Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!, Show Way. Work at other theaters includes Olney Theatre Center; Round House Theatre; Wolf Trap Opera; Studio Theatre. Work at regional theaters includes American Players Theatre; Oklahoma City Repertory Theater; Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival; American Stage; The Muny. National tour: Show Way, On Your Feet! The Story of Emilio and Gloria Estefan. Arizona State University, Design & Production, BA; University of Maryland, Design, MFA; Maryland Institute College of Art, Business of Art & Design, MPS (Graduating Sept. 2024). Jchristensendesign.com
Jonathan Dahm Robertson
Jonathan Dahm Robertson (Scenic Designer) Folger Theatre: debut. The Kennedy Center: Look Both Ways; Signature Theatre: Passing Strange; Round House Theatre: Nollywood Dreams; Theater J: Two Jews Walk into a War, The Christians; Mosaic Theater: The Agitators, Oh God!; 1st Stage: The Mamalogues, Member of the Wedding, The Nance; Theater Alliance: Day of Absence, Blood at the Root; American Stage: Indecent; The Barnstormers: Into the Woods; Cape Fear Regional Theater: Wait Until Dark; OPERA: The Princeton Festival: Nixon in China, Fidelio, Peter Grimes; Opera in the Heights: Candide, Un Ballo En Maschera, Cosi Fan Tutte. Jdahmrobertson.com. @jdahmrobertson
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.