The Folger Theatre is a component of the Folger Shakespeare Library, home to the world’s largest collection of Shakespeare materials, and to major collections of other rare Renaissance books, manuscripts, and works of art.

The theater annually offers a three-play season designed to forge strong connections with modern audiences while continuing the legacy of Shakespearean stagecraft.  In addition to the masterpieces of Shakespeare, the Folger has presented a variety of other classical works, and new plays related to or inspired by the Bard. World premieres have included  Playing Juliet/Casting Othello by Caleen Sinette Jennings and Melissa Arctic by Craig Wright, and the first performances of a one-woman show by Lynn Redgrave that later became Shakespeare for My Father.

In addition to its own productions, Folger Theatre has presented the work of the Reduced Shakespeare Company, the National Theatre of the Deaf, the Aquila Theatre Company, the Alabama Shakespeare Festival, the Shenandoah Shakespeare Express, and Interact Theatre Company. Among the notables who have performed here are Sir Derek Jacobi, Sir Ian MacKellen, and Dame Diana Rigg, along with many of Washington’s best actors. Shows are presented in the intimate Elizabethan Theatre, which evokes the courtyard of an English Renaissance inn with its three-tiered wooden balconies, carved oak columns, and half-timbered facade.