DC Theater Arts: Folger Theatre at the Folger Shakespeare Library presents its third annual Reading Room Festival, a four-day festival of staged readings, panel discussions, workshops, and community celebrations. Shakespeare serves as a catalyst for today’s playwrights — in a collaborative community, artists, critics, and scholars unite and actively engage in creating new narratives that speak to our time. The Reading Room Festival runs from Thursday, January 30 through Sunday, February 2, 2025, at the Folger. Playwrights and adaptors of Shakespeare’s works include Barry Edelstein, Emily Lyon, Reynaldo Piniella, and Whitney White.
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I find it fascinating how Shakespeare’s works from the late 1500s and early 1600s still inspire new works today. The creation of Henry 6, for example, is a direct line between Shakespeare’s works and modern playwriting. I love that the Folger is also putting on a play by Ana Caro Mellén de Soto, who was a contemporary of Shakespeare. I think often, as great as Shakespeare was, we often overlook work by his contemporaries by focusing on his plays. The time period Shakespeare wrote in, the Elizabethan Era in England, was prolific for playwriting beyond England. The social atmosphere and international dynamics, with much turmoil, bred a great deal of theatre. I am excited by the new work By the Queen also having a staged reading at the Folger. The show is about Queen Margaret from Shakespeare’s Richard III. I have never seen Richard III, but the premise of By the Queen seems fascinating.
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