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Theater

Our award-winning Folger Theatre, in our nation’s capital, bridges the arts and humanities through transformational performances and programming that speak inclusively to the human experience.
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Cymbeline: A Telenovela Melodramatic Western | Reading Room Festival

Cymbeline: A Telenovela Melodramatic Western

Alberto Bonilla shifts the setting of Shakespeare’s Cymbeline from a mythic Roman-occupied ancient Britain to the American Southwest, circa 1893, at the height of the American cowboy myth, a powder-keg of conflict between class and race: farmers against ranchers, frontier pioneers from the East vs. the Mexican and Indigenous populations.
Fri, Jan 23, 2026, 8pm
Folger Theatre
Fuente Ovejuna | Reading Room Festival

Fuente Ovejuna

This family-friendly adaptation of Lope de Vega’s Spanish Golden Age classic Fuente Ovejuna invites young audiences to imagine what solidarity looks like, with interactive elements such as audience participation, songs, and crafts to engage children while emphasizing themes of justice, unity, and resistance to tyranny.
Sat, Jan 24, 2026, 11:30am
Reading Room
LEAR | Reading Room Festival

LEAR

Set in San Francisco’s Fillmore District during the 1960s, LEAR reimagines Shakespeare’s tragedy of loyalty, love, and madness as a modern parable about the erasure of a Black neighborhood.
Sat, Jan 24, 2026, 8pm
Folger Theatre
Dark Lady: A Musical Theater Work | The Reading Room Festival

Dark Lady: A Musical Theater Work

Discover the Dark Lady, Shakespeare’s muse in his Sonnets, who has been hiding in plain sight for over 400 years. Alexa Babakhanian’s humorous, whimsical musical creates a dynamic score of beatboxing, hip hop, classical, and pop music to highlight the interplay between these two great dramatists and poets.
Sun, Jan 25, 2026, 3pm
Folger Theatre
As You Like It

As You Like It

Rosalind and her cousin Celia are forced to leave the court where they find respite and adventure in nature, inevitably succumbing to the madness of love and delightfully unpredictable circumstances.
Tue, Mar 10 – Sun, Apr 12, 2026
Folger Theatre
How Shakespeare Saved My Life

How Shakespeare Saved My Life

In this tour-de-force performance, Jacob Ming-Trent dares to rescue himself from the “slings and arrows” of his past. Born with a gift for poetry but rejected as unfit to play the part of the poet, Ming-Trent’s search for home is relentless, and the results are by turns hilarious and tragic.
Tue, Jun 9 – Sun, Jul 5, 2026
Folger Theatre