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The Bard Is Back in Town: The Folger Reopens June 21

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All that glitters is not gold. Sometimes, instead, it’s the reopening of a beloved local (and national) institution. After four years, and one public renovation extension, the Folger Shakespeare Library has announced its grand reopening for June 21, 2024. 

Days before COVID-19 closed down all of D.C.’s public spaces, the Folger—home to the world’s largest William Shakespeare collection—locked its doors in March 2020 for an $80.5 million renovation. Four years and one pandemic later, the Capitol Hill landmark has added over 12,000 square feet of public space via the new Adams Pavilion. It also offers new exhibition halls, a cafe, new galleries, additional garden spaces, a learning lab, an expanded gift shop, and more.

Especially exciting—at least for us English majors, theater nerds, and Shakespeare lovers—is that, for the first time ever, the library’s 82 copies of Shakespeare’s First Folio will be displayed and accessible to public viewers. Published in 1623, seven years after the playwright’s death, the First Folio provided the first printed collection of the Bard’s plays, including Macbeth, The Tempest, and As You Like It. Roughly 18 of these plays were never printed and could have been lost if not for the First Folio. It’s estimated that 750 copies were printed; today, there are 235 surviving editions—82 of which will be on view in the District. 

The Folger’s folios, previously stored in one of the library’s vaults, will be on display alongside a fully functioning printing press, the type used to print the folios in the 17th century. The 2,000 pound oak press was designed and built by English builder Alan May, and his son Martin. (Historical fiction fans may already be familiar with May’s work: he constructed the printing presses used in season three of the Starz series Outlander.)

Folger Shakespeare Library at night in January 2024, as it nears reopening on June 21, after a four-year building renovation and expansion. Credit: Lloyd Wolf

“This renovation expresses our faith in the ongoing importance of Shakespeare, the arts, and the humanities to our civic life,” Folger Director Michael Witmore says in today’s press release. “Years in the making, these enhancements to our building and grounds guarantee that generations of DC residents and visitors will engage with our collections and programs in new and profound ways.”

The Folger has also commissioned work from three artists to adorn the space: a poem by former U.S. Poet Laureate and Pulitzer Prize-winner Rita Dove has been inscribed on the garden wall down the new East Capitol and 2nd Street SE entrance. Those entering the new Shakespeare Exhibition Hall will be greeted by two works from interdisciplinary artist Fred Wilson: a recontextualization of Folger’s 1579 “Sieve” portrait of Queen Elizabeth I and an original work, “Heaven me such uses send, Not to pick bad from bad, but by bad mend!” Finally, Anke Neumann’s “Cloud of Imagination” sculpture hangs in the staircase entry to the Folger’s theater, which reopened to the public in November for the production of The Winter’s Tale.

“I have such a deep love for the Folger Shakespeare Library,” Dove says in the press release. “Just walking into the space, what it did to my sensibility and how it helped to refresh my soul. I wanted to recreate that feeling that I had every time I walked into the Folger, so that if someone were to be reading any portion of the poem as they walked in, it would help to guide them.”

The Folger’s new gardens were designed by landscape architecture firm OLIN; Philadelphia-based architectural firm of KieranTimberlake designed the building’s renovation.

Activities to celebrate the reopening on the weekend of June 21 will be announced soon. Visitors can reserve timed-entry passes online starting in May.

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