Folger Theatre: Last News

A Midsummer Night’s Dream has its moments — just not quite enough of them.It couldn’t have been easy moving from the intimate surrounds of the currently-indisposed Folger Theatre to the hanger-sized expanse of the National Building Museum, but it’s not just the unwieldly space that saps the production of the vision it needs to fly.The first problem is, undoubtedly, the choice to mike the actors. It may seem essential considering the acoustics of the place, but the sound quality is poor enough to lose some of the articulation, and the yells and whistles are downright jarring.Not only is the language dulled, but even the witty updates — surely a feature of an accessible production like this — can also be hard to catch.

Hill Rag in 1984, as a wide-eyed novice to the local performing arts scene, I remember thinking, “How much theater could there be to fill a weekly column?” A lot, it turned out.I still mourn the loss of the companies I once frequented, among them Leslie Jacobson’s Horizons and Bart Whiteman’s Source, where the work was always challenging, insightful, and fueled by passion and purpose.By the same token, I marveled at the slow but steady growth of companies like Woolly Mammoth, who went from performing in a church on G Street to operating their own gorgeous downtown space.And I was frequently left in awe by the soaring works of legendary directors like Joy Zinoman, Zelda Fitzgerald, and Michael Kahn.There was even a point in my reviewing career that I was at the Kennedy Center so often — back in the days when Peter Sellars turned the nation’s performing arts center into a mind-warping experimental playground — I used to joke it was my second home.In 40 years, I’ve watched the D.C. theater landscape evolve and only get bigger and more consequential.

METAMORPHOSESPsalmayene 24 directs an exciting new production of visionary Mary Zimmerman’s Tony-winning play which places the tales of Ovid into a modern-day setting, in this case the African diaspora.Folger Theatre’s production features a powerful all-Black cast that includes Edwin Brown III, Renea S. Brown, DeJeanette Horne, Yesenia Iglesias, Billie Kirshawn, Manu Kumasi, Miss Kitty, Jon Hudson Odom, Kalen Robinson, Gerrad Taylor, and Renee Elizabeth Wilson.Through June 16 at the Folger, 201 East Capitol St.

Following two seasons producing off-site, during the still-ongoing renovation of the Folger Shakespeare Library, the Folger Theatre at last returns to its intimate, historic space, and in an understandably celebratory mood. Celebration resounds throughout Tamilla Woodard’s spry, modern-dress production of Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale.