AS YOU LIKE IT, THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST, and More Set For Richmond Shakespeare Festival
The immersive outdoor season will bring productions to Virginia gardens, lakesides, and historic spaces.
Richmond Shakespeare has announced the 2026 Shakespeare Festival, a season of immersive theatrical experiences that transforms some of Virginia's most beautiful and historic locations into living stages. Featuring productions staged in gardens, amphitheatres, and intimate performance venues, the Festival invites audiences to step directly into the worlds of William Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde, and American history.
“The 2026 Festival reflects our commitment to making classical theatre immersive, accessible, and deeply connected to place,” said Jase Smith Sullivan, Managing Director of Richmond Shakespeare. “We are thrilled to partner with William & Mary to bring Shakespeare back to Williamsburg while continuing to expand the Festival's presence in Richmond. These productions invite audiences to experience theatre not just as spectators, but as participants in extraordinary spaces shaped by history, architecture, and landscape.”
The season begins with William Shakespeare's As You Like It, performed June 25 through July 12 in Sabot School's Gillette Garden in Richmond. Audiences will be transported into the Forest of Arden itself as Shakespeare's joyful comedy unfolds amid the lush gardens designed by renowned landscape architect Charles Gillette on the historic Stony Point estate. Built in 1925 in a fanciful blend of Tudor, Elizabethan, and Jacobean styles, the estate provides a richly atmospheric setting for Rosalind's journey of disguise, romance, and self-discovery.
Filled with music, wit, and mistaken identities, As You Like It celebrates love in all its forms while reminding audiences that sometimes the best way to find yourself is to get a little lost. The production then travels to Williamsburg for two special performances July 17 and 18 at the Martha Wren Briggs Amphitheatre at Lake Matoaka on the campus of the College of William & Mary. Originally constructed in 1947 to host Paul Green's The Common Glory, the lakeside amphitheatre continues a long tradition of outdoor storytelling and performance in Williamsburg, home to the earliest known Shakespeare performance in the American colonies.
Next, Richmond Shakespeare will present The Complete History of America (abridged) in the newly remodeled Lab Theatre at Phi Beta Kappa Memorial Hall at William and Mary, July 30 through August 2. Arriving just in time for the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, the wildly irreverent comedy races through 600 years of American history in ninety minutes, blending satire, physical comedy, and theatrical absurdity into a fast-paced celebration—and skewering—of the American story.
The Festival concludes in Richmond with Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest, performed August 6 through 29 at Richmond Triangle Players' Robert B. Moss Theatre. Wilde's beloved comedy of manners follows two charming bachelors who's invented alter egos spiral into a whirlwind of mistaken identities, romance, and social chaos. Filled with razor-sharp wit and delicious satire, the production offers a stylish and intimate finale to the Festival season.
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