Imagine having your own Shakespeare curator. A trusted guide who can bring you the most interesting new discoveries, the most fantastic performance insights, even take you behind the velvet rope for special access to cool events and happenings. The Folger Shakespeare Library, home to the world’s largest Shakespeare collection, in partnership with Shakespeare theatres in the U.S., is planning to do just that in 2016.

Wanting to share its massive resources and link together the audiences of many large and small Shakespeare theatres, Folger staff spent a year developing the Folger Shakespeare Theater Partnership Program to connect enthusiasts with the resources, programs and collections of the Folger and to the work of festivals and theatres that are leading the way with significant Shakespeare programming.

Participating theatres will have access to digital texts of plays available on the Folger Shakespeare Library website, information about partner theatres on a page of the website, highlights from the Library’s collections, Shakespeare news, a wide variety of digital and audio offerings and much more. All the content is available for use on participating theatres’ websites, social media, newsletters and other communication channels.

The Folger will have a soft launch this month with the first round of 28 theatre partners, including OSF. After recruiting a second round of partners, the program will be fully up and running by January 2016. Many of the theatres will also be part of the Folger’s 2016 national tour of a First Folio of Shakespeare that will visit all 50 states, Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico.

For the past couple of years, the Folger has been thinking about how it can support theatres producing Shakespeare and help build a bigger audience for Shakespeare and his plays. Metropolitan Group, a communication and creative agency, helped the Folger conduct focus groups last summer to learn more about what theatregoers wanted. (A focus group hosted in Portland attracted dozens of OSF members.) It followed that with a major national survey last winter. Survey results showed that theatregoers are eager for more information about both Shakespeare plays and his world. In their conversations with theatres around the country this spring, the Folger staff agreed that 2016, with the commemoration of the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death, seems like the right time to pilot a new program aimed at ensuring a strong future for Shakespeare.

“The idea emerged organically,” said Michael Witmore, director of the Folger Shakespeare Library. “We know that there are people all over the country who have a passion for Shakespeare in performance, and realized that we have significant resources to share. It’s an opportunity for us to deepen the conversation about this art form and its sources, as well as pave the way for future directions in performance, appreciation and even scholarship. We’ve been doing this . . . for decades, but realized that others are doing it too and that we have something to contribute.” 

Two-way street

The Folger sees this as a shared conversation, desiring to draw on the resources of the theatre partners as well. Knowing that staff energy in theatres is limited for outside projects, the program’s request of participating theatres is modest: Just share 12 pieces of Folger content—stories, podcasts, video, blog posts, Pinterest pins, Instagram pics, Buzzfeed galleries—throughout the year. Participating theatres are also invited to share their own content with the Folger. Each theatre’s content is branded with its own logo and all theatres can utilize a special Folger Shakespeare Theater Partner logo, if desired.

Theatres will also be able to participate in a wide variety of digital events. The program offers partners, members, subscribers and other constituents invitations to digital and live conversations and events offered by the Folger. Partner theatres have the option of offering each others’ members discounted tickets to performances and events as well as collaborating on joint bookings of touring productions and visiting writers.

Participating theatres’ education departments will have access to the Folger’s digital educational resources, a quarterly web conference call with education directors across the country and the opportunity to invite high school teachers to apply for the Folger’s Teaching Shakespeare Institute. 

The OSF-Folger connection goes back more than 10 years, beginning with an interview with then-Artistic Director Libby Appel for Shakespeare in American Life, a documentary the Folger produced for public radio in 2007 hosted by Sam Waterston, and later in a popular Shakespeare Unlimited podcast on the American phenomenon of outdoor Shakespeare. This season, OSF’s 2015 production of Pericles will perform at Folger Theatre from November 13 to December 20.

The benefits to OSF members include the following: OSF’s newsletters, e-blasts and Prologue magazines may include information on the Folger’s Shakespeare anniversary celebrations. They may see references to what other theatres are doing on our social media pages. If they find themselves in another part of the country and desiring to see some Shakespeare, they’ll be able to find out what’s playing very quickly. Members wanting to complete their Shakespeare canon in a certain timeframe will be able to find out who is doing Titus Andronicus or The Two Noble Kinsmen—and possibly receive a ticket discount from that theatre.

“Everyone knows the Folger as the premier destination for scholarly research, but this partnership program brings the vast resources of the Folger directly to theatre enthusiasts wherever they may be,” says Eddie Wallace, Membership and Sales Manager. “I know OSF members will be delighted to discover the depth of the collection that the Folger has available.

“In addition, this is a fantastic opportunity to share the Oregon Shakespeare Festival with new audiences. The Festival will provide an array of content for the program. I envision director interviews, Prologue articles, behindthe- scenes videos and more being shared.”

The span of the Folger program ranges from large to small Shakespeare theatres.

“The Globe’s relationship with the Folger helps us integrate for our audiences two aspects of this writer we revere,” says Barry Edelstein, Artistic Director of the Old Globe. “In the study, Shakespeare exists in the main as a man of ideas, as a literary and historical phenomenon. In a theatre, Shakespeare lives first as a wellspring of passions and emotions, as a visceral and physical phenomenon. The Folger’s programs encompass all of Shakespeare: the page and the stage, the playwright of yesterday and the visionary of tomorrow, the Shakespeare of the intellect and the Shakespeare of the heart. That’s our project, too.”

Mary Ann Bamber, Executive Director of Nebraska Shakespeare, also sees multiple benefits to this partnering. “My top five are: affiliation with the . . . highly regarded Folger Shakespeare Library ‘brand’; access to an expansive array of experts and educational resources for our organization and partner schools; connection with a network of like-minded, well-established Shakespeare theatre partners; greater visibility and broader reach for Shakespeare’s work and for our organization; a lucrative vehicle for sustaining our ‘continuous improvement’ beliefs and goals.” 

Background

Established in 1932 on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., the Folger Shakespeare Library is a renowned research center dedicated to Shakespeare and his world, a national teaching resource, and home to the awardwinning Folger Theatre, as well as music, lectures and readings. The Folger produces the Folger Editions of the plays and poems, as well as print and e-books, audio recordings, iPad apps and a free mobile resource. It also produces a journal for Shakespeare scholarship, Shakespeare Quarterly, and the award-winning Folger Magazine for general audiences. The Folger also produces podcasts, blogs, videos and documentaries, and links to other Shakespeare-producing theatres. The Folger collection houses the largest collection of First Folios in the world and more than 250 Shakespeare quartos. Its holdings also include books of Shakespeare’s time as well as scripts, playbills, set and costume designs and works of art. The Folger’s digital image collection makes available more than 100,000 images.

“Shakespeare is the great connector,” says Witmore. “We all bring significant life experiences to his plays, so in a sense, everyone is a peer when it comes to Shakespeare. From that wide community, we can work toward the deeper questions that keep returning us to this playwright. A good question is like a good shovel: it helps you get under something, gets the earth turning. Why is power even harder to give away than it is to get? Cue King Lear and Richard II. Why is the capacity to forgive so precious, and how is it a part of what we call love? Turn to The Winter’s Tale.” 

The Theatre Partners page on the Folger website, www.folger.edu, will be up and running in the fall. Check back in late September.