#folger

[shakespearenews]

An essay I wrote about Richard II, Henry IV, and Henry V at the Guthrie Theater was published this week in the Stage Directors and Choreographers Journal.

I assistant directed the plays earlier this year and enjoyed reflecting back on the process with the actors, directors, stage managers, dramaturgs, casting directors, and observers who made the process possible. A huge thank you to my editors at SDC, Stephanie Coen and Lucy Gram, and everyone who gave their time for interviews: Mark Catron, Penelope Geng, Joe Haj, Tyler Michaels King, Jennifer Liestman, Tree O’Halloran, Carla Steen, Will Sturdivant, and Stephen Yoakam.

I wanted to work with Joe Haj since I saw his Pericles at the Folger Shakespeare Library in 2015 when I was on the public programs staff. It is still one of the best productions of [anything] that I’ve seen and I’m grateful he invited me to join the directing team3 for this project. I have so many treasured memories like Henry IV bringing an air fryer to rehearsal and making pizza rolls for everyone, Hotspur creating company-specific Connections during tech, or the staggeringly brilliant composer Jack Herrick teaching me to juggle during dinner breaks.

Joe and Yoke were in the Histories at the Guthrie in 1990 and I read Michael Pennington’s book about producing ALL of the history plays with the English Shakespeare Company during rehearsals. We were all struck by how the challenges and rewards of digging deeply into Shakespeare rhyme across the years:

Joe was reminded of an experience he had on a tour of the theatre archives at the Folger Shakespeare Library when he directed Hamlet there in 2010. “I remember [the librarians] taking these prompt books down and looking in the margins, which are filled, filled, filled with scribbles of…artists just like us, trying to wrestle to the ground the hardest material in the world. Trying to find a path into it, trying to make something that may be beautiful for people to come and participate in and watch. I realized this play has been around for centuries…we’re just in the river of the long history of this play.” “We get to go in, splash around a little bit, make our minor contribution to this eons long contemplation of this play. It was so disburdening…I don’t have to make the perfect anything. I don’t have to make the thing nobody’s ever seen. I don’t have to do any of those things. I just have to try to make the thing as beautifully as I know how with these collaborators in this process, that’s my only responsibility.”

From "History Plays, Hot Ones, and the Heat Death of the Universe"

[teapotart]

even racing past the changing seasons, my feelings are still melting

[burningvelvet]

William Shakespeare’s handwritten last will and testament, including his presumed final signatures (March 25, 1616). Taken from the Folger Shakespeare Library and the National Archives of England.

[lewdhat]

“Gerwig also includes a downright Shakespearean soliloquy (impeccably delivered by America Ferrera) that is simultaneously insightful and obvious, rabble-rousing and heavy-handed, momentum-killing and an emotional highlight. It’s complicated and amazing…you know, like Shakespeare.”

This is actually a really good point, because I reacted to that monologue the way people who have never been suicidally depressed react to “To be or not to be,” with a sort of eye rolling “you do make some valid points but over all it’s a bit much.”

[charlesoberonn]

Based on a true story

[lindaseccaspina]

The Clyde Bridge K&P Bridge

From the clippings of Des and Jean Moore thanks to the Moore girls The bridge over the Clyde River. Photo courtesy of Malcolm Vant–The Kingston and Pembroke Railway Another photo of the Clyde bridge showing the stone work. Photo by Derek Redmond.–The Kingston and Pembroke Railway In 1878 work continued on from Sharbot Lake, now using 56 lb. steel rail in place of the 50 lb. iron rail. Work…

[kaban-bang]

okay

[shiny-boii]

This possibly (very possibly) sounds like the Folgers Romeo and Juliet which is AWESOME AND I LOVE IT

So I feel I should share my notes because it was a really cool production with a great cast ✨

If ANY need clarification then please ask because this was such a good show that deserves its dues

i’m at intermission of a production of romeo and juliet that i think you would LOVE. it’s a very well-done modern staging. juliet reminds me of like every girl i knew in high school. mercutio and tybalt kiss during the fight.

OMGSIES. THIS IS EVERYTHING. FABULOUSNESS.

[maureen-corpse]

this is how the movie went, right

[shakespearenews]

For the Folger’s production, Verona is recast as a fictionalized Washington, DC, a metaverse inspired by our real-world election cycle, which sees the conservative Lord Capulet running against the liberal Lady Montague. Audiences for the play will be greeted by campaign ads and footage from the metaverse’s national nominating conventions as they enter Folger Theatre. Campaign ads and the digital ephemera of the metaverse will be woven throughout the production as well.

...Lady Capulet’s verse was derived from the speech made during the Republican National Convention by former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy. Minnesota Governor Tim Walz was the inspiration for Benvolio, and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s speech provided the basis for the remarks by Paris. Meanwhile, Mercutio’s words were adapted from Oprah Winfrey.

[teapotart]

A long cover to celebrate the ending of Part One of my comic ✨

(the sign says "Chemistry and life")

[ravenwraithe]

i hope they explain what the fuck needles is on about and dont just graham folger this entire paragraph

like i know we'll get the lore, but also i need to know why on earth was the guy ranting about the residents of that area

cannot stand another 'ate a whole book without any apparent reason'

[driedlillies]

I have nothing but deep respect for Oliver Banks fans for creating the greatest ship names of all times. Terminal velocity? Deathnote? they’re slaying so hard

[cult-of-the-eye]

We shouldn't have gotten over Graham Folger and Amy Patel so quickly guys like creepy ass neighbour who's gay so slightly less creepy and you start watching him and suddenly he gets replaced by someone who has his name but isn't him and you just gotta fucking live with that??? oh also he ate a bunch of his notebooks. what.

[existentialqueer]

We wish you a merry incest

We wish you a merry incest

We wish you a merry incest

And an incestuous affair

[hypnogogyc]

Oliver harem when