LEAR
Translation/adaptation/remix by Marcus Gardley
Directed by Hana S. Sharif
Original text by William Shakespeare
In partnership with Play On Shakespeare
Booking and details
Dates Sat, Jan 24, 2026, 7pm
Venue Folger Theatre
Tickets $20
Please note: Children under the age of 4 are not permitted.
NOTE: This event’s start time has changed, from 8pm to 7pm.
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. Once a thriving center of Black art, music, and culture, the Fillmore becomes the site for a King Lear adaptation about an aging real estate mogul, his three daughters, and the threat of urban renewal. This modern-verse translation by Obie Award–winning playwright Marcus Gardley offers a poetic reckoning with history, progress, and patriarchy.
After the reading, award-winning theater artist, novelist and educator Ifa Bayeza will lead a conversation with members of the creative team and cast.
How to attend the festival
Individual events – $20
Reading Room Festival All-Access Pass – $125
Access to all staged readings, panel discussions, workshops, and community celebrations included in the Festival.
Students – Free admission to readings and conversations
Admitted free one-half hour before event start time, with a valid ID.
About Play On Shakespeare
Play On Shakespeare is a non-profit company dedicated to promoting and creating contemporary modern English translations of Shakespeare’s plays. Through partnerships with artists and organizations worldwide, Play On Shakespeare delivers these translations via theatrical productions, workshops and trainings, podcasts, publications, and film. Play On Shakespeare is made possible through generous support of the Hitz Foundation.
Cast
Shirine Babb*
Shirine Babb (Kent) Folger Theatre: Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra; Shakespeare Theatre Company: King Lear, Timon of Athens, Merchant of Venice; Kennedy Center: Measure + Dido (with Derek Jacobi); Roundhouse Theatre: School Girls, Or, the African Mean Girls Play (Helen Hayes Award). Broadway: A Beautiful Noise: The Neil Diamond Musical, The Piano Lesson; Lincoln Center: Macbeth, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (OBC). Off-Broadway (selected): Theatre for a New Audience: Timon of Athens, Merchant of Venice; Roundabout Theatre Company: Napoli, Brooklyn, Bedlam’s The Crucible, Bedlam’s Mary Stuart; WP Theater: Aliens with Extraordinary Skills. Regional: Huntington Theatre Company/Long Wharf Theatre: Disgraced (2015 Critics Circle Award nomination); Old Globe Shakespeare Festival: 2010/2011 seasons. International: Royal Lyceum (Scotland): Merchant of Venice; Arcola Theatre (London): Widows. Television: Extrapolations, Iron Fist, I Love You…But I Lied, Blue Bloods, Madam Secretary. Education: Training: East 15 Acting Conservatory UK: MA; University of San Diego Shiley /Old Globe PTAP: MFA.
Prince Bajon Bihai IV
Prince Bajon Bihai IV (Albany) Folger Theatre: debut; Arena Stage: We Are Gathered; Studio Theatre: The Scenarios (understudy); Shakespeare Theatre Company: The Dilemma of a Ghost (staged reading). Film: LOSER (2026). princebajon.com
@princebajon
Edwin Brown III*
Edwin Brown III (Cornwall) Folger Theatre: Metamorphoses; Studio Theatre: Wig Out!, Three Sisters/No Sisters (understudy); Shakespeare Theatre Company: Macbeth. Regional: Alabama Shakespeare Festival: Fly; Kansas City Repertory Theatre: Freedom Rider; Kansas Classical Repertory Theatre: The Comedy of Errors; Coterie Theatre: The Freedom Trial of Anthony Burns. Broadway Workshop: Thoughts of a Colored Man. Off-Broadway: New Victory Theatre: Romeo and Juliet; 59E59: Separate and Equal. National Tour: The Acting Company: The Three Musketeers. Television: Lincoln’s War at Washington. Instagram: @kingedwinbrown.
JaBen Early*
JaBen Early (Edgar) Folger Theatre: Our Verse in Time to Come (The Reading Room 2023); Julius Caesar; Olney Theatre Center: Piano Lesson; Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company: The Convert and Civilization; Studio Theatre: F**king A; Mosaic Theatre Company: Unexplored Interior; Round House Theatre: Father Comes Home from the Wars; Arena Stage: All the Way, Ruined and The Great Society; Guthrie Theater: We Are Proud to Present…and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner; Marin Theatre Company: The Convert; InterAct Theatre Company: We Are Proud to Present…. Early received his training from Morehouse College and the British American Drama Academy. He has his M.A. from Sarah Lawrence College.
Harriett D. Foy*
Harriett D. Foy (The Black Queen) Folger Theatre: debut. Shakespeare Theatre Company: The Amen Corner; Arena Stage: Nina Simone: Four Women, The Women of Brewster Place (Helen Hayes nomination), Polk County (Helen Hayes nomination), and The Piano Lesson. Broadway: Amelie, Amazing Grace, The American Plan, and Mamma Mia. Off-Broadway: Classic Stage Company: black odyssey (AUDELCO Award), Signature Theater: The Young Man From Atlanta (AUDELCO Nomination), New York Theatre Workshop: The House That Will Not Stand (AUDELCO Award, Drama Desk, Drama League, Outer Critics Circle Nominations). Select Regional: Madison Theater: Ella: First Lady of Song ( AUDELCO Award), Baltimore Center Stage: A Wonder in My Soul. Film/Television: PValley; Law & Order; Welcome to the Wayne; Orange is the New Black. Book narration: Night in the City (ALA Award). Howard University. “WGATAP!”harriettdfoy.com @harriett_d_foy @Foytata24
Nikkole Salter*
Nikkole Salter (Goneril) Folger Theatre: Julius X: A Re-envisioning of The Tragedy of Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare, 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
Sabrina Lynne Sawyer*
Sabrina Lynne Sawyer (Cordelia, Third Knight) Folger Theatre: A Room in the Castle, The Winter’s Tale (2023), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (2022), A Room in the Castle: The Reading Room Festival 2023. Studio Theatre: Exception to the Rule; Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company: The Sensational Sea Mink-ettes; Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival: The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part 2; Imagination Stage: Inside Out and Backwards; Front Porch Arts Collective: Chicken & Biscuits; National tour: National Players (Olney Theatre Center): A Midsummer Night’s Dream, A Raisin in the Sun. BA, Acting, University of Southern California.
John Douglas Thompson*
John Douglas Thompson is an English-American actor. He is a Tony Award nominee and the recipient of two Drama Desk Awards, three Obie Awards, an Outer Critics Circle Award, and a Lucille Lortel Award.
Craig Wallace*
Craig Wallace (Gloucester) DC Area: Multiple productions with Folger Theatre, Ford’s Theatre, Shakespeare Theatre Company, Arena Stage, Signature Theatre, Olney Theatre Center, Everyman Theatre, Studio Theatre, Mosaic Theatre, Roundhouse Theatre, Woolly Mammoth Theatre. Regional: Actors Theatre of Louisville, Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey, Shakespeare Santa Cruz, Hangar Theatre, others. Training: BFA, Howard University; MFA, Pennsylvania State University; Royal National Theatre, London.
Justin Weaks*
Justin Weaks (Edmund, Burgundy) Folger Theatre: By the Queen: Reading Room Festival 2025; Arena Stage: Angels in America, Part One: Millennium Approaches (Helen Hayes Award; Supporting Performer in a Play); Mosaic Theater Company: one in two; Woolly Mammoth Theater Company (Company Member): There’s Always the Hudson (Helen Hayes Award; Lead Performer in a Play), BLKS, Gloria, Describe the Night, A FINE MADNESS. DC area credits include work with The John F. Kennedy Center, Ford’s Theatre, Round House Theatre, Theater J, Theater Alliance, and more. Off-Broadway: The New Group: i need space. Regional credits include work with Barrington Stage Company, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, Shakespeare & Company and Barter Theater. Education: Greensboro College. @keithweaks
Renee Elizabeth Wilson*
Renee Elizabeth Wilson (Regan, Second Knight) Folger Theatre: Julius X: A Re-envisioning of The Tragedy of Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Metamorphoses (Helen Hayes Award nomination); Theater Alliance: American Fast; Mosaic Theater Company: Monumental Travesties (world premiere), Native Son, Milk Like Sugar; Theater J: Intimate Apparel; Round House Theatre: Radio Golf, Nollywood Dreams; Constellation Theatre Company: Moon Man Walk; Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company: Ain’t No Mo’; Imagination Stage: The Hula-Hoopin’ Queen (world premiere); Studio Theatre: Skeleton Crew, Doubt, White Noise; Arena Stage: Tempestuous Elements, Seven Guitars. International: Red Shoes (world premiere) Film: Smoke Out, VeraCity. @actpoetic88
Creative team
Marcus Gardley
Marcus Gardley (Playwright – LEAR)Folger Theatre: debut. Marcus Gardley is an acclaimed TV writer, playwright, and screenwriter who wrote the screenplay for the reimagining of The Color Purple (2023), which won 11 NAACP Awards and the most nominations and wins in history. He won the 2022 WGA award for Best Adapted TV Longform Series for Maid (Netflix). He is the recipient of the 2019 Doris Duke Artist Award. He is a 2019 Obie Award winner for his play The House That Will Not Stand, the 2015 Glickman Award winner, and a finalist for the 2016 and 2015 Kennedy Prize. Other plays include X: Or, Betty Shabazz v. The Nation, black odyssey (2023 Drama Desk nomination), The Gospel of Lovingkindness, every tongue confess, …and Jesus Moonwalks the Mississippi, and the road weeps, the well runs dry.
Hana S. Sharif**
Hana S. Sharif (Director – LEAR) Folger Theatre: debut; Arena Stage: The Motion (*upcoming*), The Age of Innocence, Death on the Nile. Regional: Murder on the Orient Express (7 STLCC nominations), A Christmas Carol (4 STLCC nominations, STL A-List Award), Pride and Prejudice (5 STLCC nominations), Porgy and Bess, The Who & The What (3 SFBA Critic Circle nominations), Fun Home, Sense and Sensibility, The Christians, Les Liaisons Dangereuses, Pride and Prejudice (DCArts: Best Director/Best New Play), The Whipping Man, Gem of the Ocean (six CCC nominations), Gee’s Bend (CCC Award Best Ensemble, two nominations), Next Stop Africa, Cassie, The Drum, IFdentity, Pretty Fire, Patient 463, I, Marcus Garvey, Quicksand, Hospice, and The Blacker The Berry. Her plays include All the Women I Used to Be, The Rise and Fall of Day, and The Sprott Cycle Trilogy (1880, 1964, 2010).
Ifa Bayeza
Ifa Bayeza (panelist), Folger Fellow: Shakespeare and Black Performing Women; 2026 Inductee: College of Fellows of the American Theatre; 2018-2023 National Trust for Historic Preservation Artist-in-Residence; 2018 NEH Humanist-in-Residence; 2011-2015 Distinguished Artist-in-Residence, Brown University. Plays: Mosaic Theater Company: THE TILL TRILOGY – The Ballad of Emmett Till; That Sumner in Sumner, Benevolence (Roy Cockrum Award); Goodman Theatre: The Ballad of Emmett Till (Mystery Writers of America “Best Play;” 2010, Fountain Theatre, L.A., Garland Award “Best Play,” Ovation and Drama Critics Circle “Best Production”); One Small Alice (Children’s Theatre Company of Minneapolis GENERATION NOW commission, 2024 Kennedy Center Festival of New Works); String Theory; Infants of the Spring; Ta’zieh Between Two Rivers. Musicals: Bunk Johnson … a blues poem; KID ZERO and Charleston Olio. Novel: Some Sing, Some Cry, co-authored with Ntozake Shange (St. Martin’s Press).
Faedra Chatard Carpenter
Faedra Chatard Carpenter (Dramaturg) Folger Theatre: The Beatrice Project: The Reading Room Festival 2025, Metamorphoses;Ford’s Theatre: Production Dramaturg, Something Moving: A Meditation on Maynard (world premiere), Script Treatment Writer and Panelist Facilitator, Written Then, Spoken Now: Freedom Was in Sight!; Mosaic Theater Company: Development & Production Dramaturg, The Till Trilogy (The Ballad of Emmett Till, That Summer in Sumner, and Benevolence), Production Dramaturg, Fabulation, or The Re-Education of Undine, Queens Girl in Africa; the Kennedy Center Theater for Young Audience: Production Dramaturg, Kimmy ( radio play series); Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, Dramaturgy Curator: RESET.
Leigh Robinette*
Leigh Robinette (Production Stage Manager) Folger Theatre: The Winter’s Tale, A Midsummer Night’s Dream; Shakespeare Theatre Company: Guys & Dolls, Frankenstein, Uncle Vanya; Studio Theatre: English, The Scenarios, Love, Love, Love; Woolly Mammoth: Incendiary, There’s Always the Hudson, Describe the Night, Gloria, Botticelli in the Fire, Familiar, The Arsonists, Hir, Baby Screams Miracle, An Octoroon, Guards at the Taj; Arena Stage: Angels in America, Holiday, Change Agent, Dear Evan Hansen, The Originalist, Mother Courage and her Children; Theater J: Love Sick, The Jewish Queen Lear; The Kennedy Center: The Second City’s Love, Factually. Off-Broadway: Second Stage Theater: Dear Evan Hansen. Live Events: Capital Concerts, Live Nation Entertainment, Architex.
Bryan Boyd*
Bryan Boyd (Assistant Stage Manager) Folger Theatre: Julius X: A Re-envisioning of The Tragedy of Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare. Stage management: Creative Cauldron: Beauty and the Beast; Adventure Theatre: Les Misérables; Montgomery College: Into the Woods, West Side Story. Assistant stage management: Theater J: Sheltered; Mosaic Theater: Theory; Constellation: Skin of Our Teeth; ArtsCentric: Sister Act.
Alexus Wells
Alexus Wells (Production Assistant) Folger Theatre: Julius X: A Re-envisioning of The Tragedy of Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare.
*Member of Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States
**Member of Stage Directors and Choreographers Society
Related
Learn more about the play in this Q&A with the playwright.
Q&A with Marcus Gardley
Playwright Marcus Gardley discusses why he added a wife for Lear, how LEAR may be adapted for your own city, and how he interweaves Shakespeare’s royal tragedy with a modern moment in American history.