Janet Alexander News

It is less than a month to go until Leeds Playhouse is taken over by the revolutionaries, modern-day activists and contemporary artists of 1001 Stories . As part of this exciting two-week takeover, Alan Bennett, the multi award winning actor, author, playwright and screenwriter, best known for The Madness of King George, The History Boys and The Lady in the Van, will return to his home city for a rare appearance just days before his 89th birthday.

Daniels will lead the vision and strategy for cultural programming across the institution, including theater performances, concerts, poetry readings, talks, screenings, and other humanities programs inspired by the Folger collection, in the Folger's historic Elizabethan Theatre as well as new galleries and public spaces created by the building renovation.

In response to the coronavirus pandemic, Folger Theatre is altering the programming schedule for its 2020/21 'On the Road' season of plays. In working to ensure the well-being and safety of patrons, Folger Theatre, along with its project partners the National Building Museum and the University of South Carolina, have made the decision to postpone the 2020 summer production of A Midsummer Night's Dream and the National Building Museum's Summer Block Party, featuring the Folger Shakespeare Playhouse, to Summer 2021.

The National Building Museum announced today its partnership with Folger Shakespeare Library, in association with the University of South Carolina, to design the 2020 Summer Block Party exhibition for the Museum's Great Hall. Shakespeare's Playhouse, will be the seventh in the Museum's annual summer series and the stage for Folger Theatre performances from July 4 through September 7, 2020.

When the mischievous Falstaff overestimates his own scheming prowess and underestimates the savvy wives in the town of Windsor, hilarity is ahead. Folger Theatre concludes its successful 2019/20 season with The Merry Wives of Windsor. Aaron Posner (King John, The Winter's Tale, Twelfth Night at Folger Theatre) returns to the Folger to direct Shakespeare's delightful comedy on love, money, deception, and the power of women, set here in the early 1970s.

Genius and jealousy collide in Folger Theatre's production of Peter Shaffer's Amadeus. Richard Clifford (Mary Stuart and The School for Scandal at Folger Theatre), directs the Tony Award-winning “Best Play” set against the backdrop of the opulent salons and opera houses of 18th-century Vienna, examining the rivalry between court composer Antonio Salieri and the boorish but brilliant Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The production features Helen Hayes Award-winner Ian Merrill Peakes (Folger Theatre's Macbeth and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead) as the tortured composer Salieri, who finds himself living in the shadow of his musical rival Mozart (Samuel Adams).

Genius and jealousy collide in Folger Theatre's production of Peter Shaffer's Amadeus. Richard Clifford (Mary Stuart and The School for Scandal at Folger Theatre), directs the Tony Award-winning a?oeBest Playa?? set against the backdrop of the opulent salons and opera houses of 18th-century Vienna, examining the rivalry between court composer Antonio Salieri and the boorish but brilliant Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Folger Theatre opens the 2019/20 season with 1 Henry IV, Shakespeare's richly layered coming-of-age tale of power, rebellion, honor, and redemption. The production is directed by Rosa Joshi (co-founder of Seattle's upstart crow collective theater company in Seattle; Henry V and As You Like It at Oregon Shakespeare Festival), who makes her DC directorial debut at the Folger.

Folger Theatre opens the 2019/20 season with 1 Henry IV, Shakespeare's richly layered coming-of-age tale of power, rebellion, honor, and redemption. The production is directed by Rosa Joshi (co-founder of Seattle's upstart crow collective theater company in Seattle; Henry V and As You Like It at Oregon Shakespeare Festival), who makes her DC directorial debut at the Folger. 

The Folger Shakespeare Library will host the DC premiere of Ghost Light, a new dark comedy by filmmakers John Stimpson and Geoffrey Taylor. The film, a Feature Film Award-winner at the Austin Film Festival, will be shown in the historic Folger Theatre located on Capitol Hill. Tickets are $20 and can be purchased at www.folger.edu/talks or by calling the Folger Box Office at 202.544.7077.

Mind vs. Matter. Game on. Folger Theatre concludes its 2018/19 season of characters that "shake the world" with Love's Labor's Lost, Shakespeare's quick-witted comedy filled with oaths, trickery, and confessions of love. Vivienne Benesch, the 2017 winner of the annual Zelda Fichandler Award, makes her Folger directorial debut.

Folger Theatre presents the world premiere of Confection, an immersive theater piece imagined and performed by New York's acclaimed theater company, Third Rail Projects. Confection is conceived and written by Zach Morris, directed and choreographed by Zach Morris, with Tom Pearson and Jennine Willett, and created in collaboration with the company. Commissioned by Folger Theatre in association with Before 'Farm to Table': Early Modern Foodways and Cultures, Confection is a rollicking rumination on opulence, inequity, and teeny-tiny desserts. 

Folger Theatre presents the world premiere of Confection, an immersive theater piece imagined and performed by New York's acclaimed theater company, Third Rail Projects. Confection is conceived and written by Zach Morris, directed and choreographed by Zach Morris, with Tom Pearson and Jennine Willett, and created in collaboration with the company.

Behold the year of the woman: 1665. Folger Theatre continues its 2018/19 season of characters who "shake the world" with Nell Gwynn, the Olivier Award-winning 2016 comedy from London about one of the first women to perform on the English stage.

Secret deals. Threats of mass destruction. Shifting loyalties. Folger Theatre follows its sold-out run of Macbeth with King John, Shakespeare's rarely performed history play chronicling King John's turbulent reign from 1199 to 1216. Directed by six-time Helen Hayes Award-winner Aaron Posner, the production features Kate Eastwood Norris (Macbeth, The Taming of the Shrew) as Philip Faulconbridge (the Bastard) and Holly Twyford (A Midsummer Night's Dream, Arcadia) as Arthur's tragic mother, Constance. Brian Dykstra, last seen on the Folger stage in Romeo and Juliet, will play the inscrutable King John.

Rampant ambition and minds unhinged. Shrieking owls and prophesies foretold. Folger Theatre begins its 2018/19 season with Macbeth, Shakespeare's murderous tragedy seen anew and here, set in London's famous Bedlam asylum for a groundbreaking production integrating period music into a famous variation of the play. The Restoration-era adaptation by Sir William Davenant, which mesmerized audiences from the re-opening of London theaters in the 1660's until well into the 18th century, blends music performed by Folger Consort and the seminal tragedy of the Scottish king.

Rampant ambition and minds unhinged. Shrieking owls and prophesies foretold. Folger Theatre begins its 2018/19 season with Macbeth, Shakespeare's murderous tragedy seen anew and here, set in London's famous Bedlam asylum for a groundbreaking production integrating period music into a famous variation of the play. The Restoration-era adaptation by Sir William Davenant, which mesmerized audiences from the re-opening of London theaters in the 1660's until well into the 18th century, blends music performed by Folger Consort and the seminal tragedy of the Scottish king.

Folger Theatre concludes its 2017/18 season with a special engagement of George Bernard Shaw's epic portrait of Saint Joan, presented by the acclaimed New York-based Bedlam theater company. Saint Joan will be directed by Bedlam's Artistic Director Eric Tucker (the award-winning director of Sense and Sensibility at Folger Theatre) and features a cast of four, including Tucker, playing over 25 parts. Aundria Brown is the martyred heroine of France, Joan of Arc.

Folger Theatre concludes its 2017/18 season with a special engagement of George Bernard Shaw's epic portrait of Saint Joan, presented by the acclaimed New York-based Bedlam theater company. Saint Joan will be directed by Bedlam's Artistic Director Eric Tucker (the award-winning director of Sense and Sensibility at Folger Theatre) and features a cast of four, including Tucker, playing over 25 parts. Aundria Brown is the martyred heroine of France, Joan of Arc.

With Bedlam's Saint Joan concluding Folger Theatre's 2017/18 season, The Washington Post chief theater critic Peter Marks sits down with the production's celebrated director Eric Tucker for a lively theater talk on Wednesday, May 16 at 7:00pm. Marks and Tucker will discuss the innovative, stripped-down staging of George Bernard Shaw's classic Saint Joan, the success of Eric's Bedlam theater in New York, bringing Jane Austen to the stage (Folger's Sense and Sensibility), approaching Shakespeare and other classic authors for a modern audience, and more.