Folger Shakespeare Library Announces the Plays, Playwrights, and Directors for the Fifth Annual Reading Room Festival

All-Access Passes for the staged readings and events are now on sale

WASHINGTON, Nov. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Today the Folger Shakespeare Library announced a star lineup of playwrights—Lauren M. Gunderson, Naomi Iizuka, Drew Petersen, and Octavio Solis—for the fifth annual Reading Room Festival. This multi-day festival of staged readings, panel discussions, workshops, and community celebrations produced by Folger Theatre runs from Thursday, January 28, through Saturday, January 30, 2027.

"The Reading Room Festival is the perfect opportunity to see new plays from excellent playwrights and directors brought to life by extraordinary actors," said Beth Emelson, Interim Head of Artistic Programs and Director of Producing. "And it is a fun and relaxed vibe that makes all of the spaces of the Folger—from the Theatre to the Reading Room to the Great Hall—an inspiring place to see a performance and gather with people who also love theater and Shakespeare."

This year's festival features staged readings and discussions of four new works. One of the most popular playwrights in the United States, Lauren M. Gunderson (Folger Theatre's A Room in the Castle), returns to the Folger with her Much Ado About Nothing-inspired rom-com Lady Disdain, co-directed by Gunderson and Nadia Guevara (Reading Room Festival's staged reading of Cymbeline: A Telenovela Melodramatic Western). Award-winning playwright and educator Naomi Iizuka's modern verse translation of Shakespeare's history play Richard II, originally commissioned for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival's Play On Shakespeare project, will be directed by Timothy Douglas (Folger Theatre's As You Like It). Drew Petersen, who received the TYA/USA Artistic Innovation Award for his work in Theatre for Young Audiences, will present The Stowaway, a play for all ages that draws its themes from several of Shakespeare's works. Lastly, Edward III has been in the news as scholars have recently concluded the early modern history play may have been authored by William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe; acclaimed playwright and director Octavio Solis' adaptation of Edward III for Play On Shakespeare, and director Kate Pitt, will offer audiences a timely examination into Shakespeare's collaborations and lesser-known works.

In addition to staged readings, the weekend's lineup of events includes a panel discussion with the featured playwrights, a free family workshop on creating puppets, and the annual "Shakespeare as a Starting Point" discussion, featuring Folger Institute Director Dr. Patricia Akhimie, curator of the landmark Folger exhibition To Hear Her Speak: Black Women and Shakespeare, examining how Shakespeare offers an opportunity to explore questions of representation and the historical record. The weekend also includes a celebratory party in the Great Hall for select guests and all-access passholders.

Works presented at the Reading Room Festival are each at different points of their creative journey. The Folger is excited to support the development of these plays before they are staged or restaged at theaters across the country. Recent successes of the festival include Jacob Ming-Trent's How Shakespeare Saved My Life, co-commissioned by Folger Theatre and Red Bull Theater and co-produced last season by Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Folger Theatre, and Red Bull Theater at The Public; Al Letson's Julius X: A Re-envisioning of The Tragedy of Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare; and Gunderson's A Room in the Castle, co-produced with Cincinnati Shakespeare Company.

Reading Room Festival All-Access Passes provide admission to all readings and events. They are now available for purchase at folger.edu/readingroom or by contacting the Folger box office at (202) 544-7077. Early-bird passes are $100 through December 31; passes purchased beginning January 1 are $125. Tickets for individual events will go on sale in early January.

Folger Theatre wishes to thank Premier Season Sponsors Dr. Bill and Evelyn Braithwaite and Andrea "Andi" Kasarsky, Season Sponsors Scott and Liz Vance, Contributing Sponsors Keith and Celia Arnaud, Nicky Cymrot, and Dr. Heather McPherson, and Artist Sponsors Karl K. and Carrol Benner Kindel, with special thanks to Play On Shakespeare, Share Fund, and The Shubert Foundation.

STAGED READINGS

The Question of Edward III: Who dunnit?
Featuring selections from
Edward III
In a modern verse translation by Octavio Solis
Directed by Kate Pitt

Friday, January 29, 6:30pm

Who wrote The Raigne of King Edward III? Published anonymously in 1596, the play's authorship has long been a subject of debate. As evidence mounts in favor of Shakespeare's involvement, including recent computer analysis conducted by Shakespeare scholars and highlighted in an article in The Guardian, the Folger puts these claims to the test. Featuring performed excerpts from Octavio Solis' Play On Shakespeare translation of Edward III alongside selections from established Shakespeare plays, scholars and artists will make the case for why Edward III should be considered a play written by Shakespeare. Will the arguments stand up? Join us for a lively discussion, culminating in a final vote by you, our audience.

Richard II by William Shakespeare
In a modern verse translation by Naomi Iizuka
Directed by Timothy Douglas
Friday, January 29, 8pm

Shakespeare's Richard II presents the momentous struggle between King Richard II and his disenfranchised cousin Henry Bolingbroke. It's a story filled with unbridled ambition, treachery, conspiracies, and regicide. Naomi Iizuka's modern verse translation, focused on the final two chaotic years of Richard II's reign, finds new parallels for contemporary audiences about the cracks that appear through the façade of state power.

The Stowaway
By Drew Petersen 
Director to be announced
Saturday, January 30, 12:30pm

Times are changing on the Island of Hockey Puck. A new Duke is ruling with an iron fist; the old Duke disappeared in a puddle of mystery, and a stowaway named Dull is on the run from it all back to her homeland of Illyria. Inspired by the plays and language of Shakespeare, The Stowaway uses live music and a sea of imagination to bring the poetry of Shakespeare to the young and young at heart!

Lady Disdain
By Lauren M. Gunderson
Based on Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare
Co-Directed by Nadia Guevara and Lauren M. Gunderson
Saturday, January 30, 7:30pm

A wildly successful Romantasy series needs the best of the best to voice its audiobooks. Who better, alas, than exes Bea and Ben? When they're thrown together to record the hottest books on the market, their professional reunion becomes a battle of wits, words, and wildly inconvenient chemistry. Between breathless love scenes, epic fantasy adventures, and the delicious absurdity of recording very sexy stories with your ex, Bea and Ben must navigate the terrifying possibility that their own love story isn't quite finished.

Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing gets a makeover—and Beatrice and Benedick a do-over—in this unapologetically sexy romantic comedy about second chances, the power of storytelling, and standing up for those you love, including yourself.

ARTISTS

Timothy Douglas (Director – Richard II) Folger Theatre: As You Like It, Richard III, Much Ado About Nothing; Arena Stage: King Hedley II, Disgraced, Nina Simone: Four Women; The Kennedy Center: Long Way Down; Round House Theatre: Sally and Tom, A Lesson Before Dying, Permanent Collection, Two Trains Running, Father Comes Home From the Wars, Gem of the Ocean, Nine Night; Signature Theatre: Spunk, The Color Purple (Helen Hayes Award/Best Musical), Where the Mountain Meets the Sea; Theatre Alliance: Insurrection, Dontrell Who Kissed the Sea; Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company: The Last Orbit of Billy Mars. Regional: Actors Theatre of Louisville, American Conservatory Theater, Berkeley Rep, Boston Lyric Opera, Chicago Opera Theater, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, Cleveland Playhouse, Denver Center Theatre Company, Guthrie Theater, Mark Taper Forum, Milwaukee Rep, New Orleans Opera, Shakespeare and Company, South Coast Rep, Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Utah Shakespeare Festival, and many others. Off Broadway: Ars Nova, Classic Stage Company. International: Downstage (New Zealand), Great Theatre of China (Shanghai), National Theatret (Norway), NIDA (Australia), Toi Whakaari (New Zealand). www.timothydouglas.org

Nadia Guevara (Co-Director – Lady Disdain) Folger Theatre: Measure for Measure (associate director); Cymbeline: A Telenovela Dramatic Western (Reading Room Festival 2026), DC I Love You: First Dates; Imagination Stage: Cinderella: A Salsa Fairy Tale; Keegan Theatre: N; Shakespeare Theatre Company: Merry Wives (Helen Hayes Award – Outstanding Ensemble). Regional: Dallas Theater Center, McCarter Theatre. NYC/Off-Broadway: Keen Company/Drama League: Cell; National Queer Theatre: The Survival; The Public: Apple Bottom; The New Group: The Capitalist and the Factory Worker. Additional credits with New York Stage and Film, Red Bull Theater, Latinx Playwrights Circle. Awards: Drama League Stage Directing Fellow, NALAC Fellow, Actor of the Year – San Diego Critics Circle. nadiaguevara.com

Lauren M. Gunderson (Playwright and Co-Director – Lady Disdain) has been one of the most produced playwrights in America since 2015, topping the list thrice including 2022-23. She is a two-time winner of the Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award for I and You and The Book of Will, the winner of the Lanford Wilson Award, and a finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. She is a playwright, screenwriter, musical book writer, and children's author who lives in San Francisco. The Folger Shakespeare Library co-produced her play A Room in the Castle with Cincinnati Shakespeare Company, which was previously performed as a stage reading in the Reading Room Festival. She graduated from NYU Tisch as a Reynolds Fellow in Social Entrepreneurship. LaurenGunderson.com

Naomi Iizuka (Playwright – Richard II) Folger Theatre: debut. Regional: Actors Theater of Louisville: At The Vanishing Point, Aloha, Say The Pretty Girls, Polaroid Stories, War of The Worlds; Berkeley Repertory Theatre: Concerning Strange Devices from The Distant West, 36 Views; Children's Theatre Company: Anon(ymous); Cornerstone Theater Company: 3 Truths; Dallas Theater Center: Skin; Goodman Theatre: Ghostwritten; Guthrie Theater: After A Hundred Years; Huntington Theatre Company: 36 Views; Portland Center Stage: 36 Views; Yale Repertory Theatre: Sleep; La Jolla Playhouse: What Happens Next. Off-Broadway: Brooklyn Academy of Music: Sleep, War of The Worlds; The Public Theater: 36 Views; Soho Rep: Skin. Film/Television: Terminal List, Dark Wolf (Amazon); The Sympathizer (HBO Max); Bosch Legacy (Amazon); Tokyo Vice (HBO Max); The Terror (AMC). Awards: Hermitage Major Theater Award, PEN/Laura Pels Award, Alpert Award, Whiting Award, Stavis Award, PEN Center USA West Award for Drama. Teaching: Distinguished Professor of Theatre and Dance at UC San Diego. Education/Training: BA in Literature, Yale College; MFA in Theater, UC San Diego. 

Drew Petersen (Playwright – The Stowaway) Folger Theatre: debut. The Kennedy Center: The Cerulean Time Capsule; Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts: Up and Away, Meet Me at the Fountain; Park Avenue Armory: The 7 and ½ Mysteries of Toulouse McLane, The Electric Doyenne; La Jolla Playhouse: INERTIA, [Image Description]; Classic Stage Company: The Stowaway, Paper Mill Playhouse: Bryant's Tavern, 1780: Voices from the Past. Educator: Park Avenue Armory, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York Theatre Workshop, and New Victory Theater. MA: New York University - Educational Theatre. Consultant: Brown Arts Institute, MASS MoCA, The Glasshouse, and the Charleston Gaillard Center. Past Artistic Director for Trusty Sidekick. TYA Artistic Innovation Award (2018). drewepetersen.com @drupetes 

Kate Pitt (Director – Edward III) Folger Theatre: four years in Public Programs, The Way of the World (associate director). Shakespeare Theatre Company: King Lear (assistant director). Regional: The Acting Company: Timon of Athens (reading), A Midsummer Night's Dream, Great Expectations, The Three Musketeers, Romeo and Juliet (associate director); Guthrie Theater: Richard II, Henry IV, Henry V (assistant director); Primary Stages: Dig (associate director); MIT Shakespeare Ensemble: Henry V. Essays and comedy with The Arden Shakespeare, McSweeney's, and Good Tickle Brain. BA: History, Yale University. www.katepitt.com @shakespearenews.

Octavio Solis (Playwright – Edward III) Folger Theatre: debut. Playwright/Director: Scene With Cranes, In the Clearing, Quixote Nuevo, Mother Road, Man of the Flesh, La Posada Mágica, Cloudlands (musical co-written with Adam Gwon), Hole in the Sky, Alicia's Miracle, Se Llama Cristina, John Steinbeck's The Pastures of Heaven, Ghosts of the River, Lydia, June in a Box, Gibraltar, The Ballad of Pancho and Lucy, Shiner, The Seven Visions of Encarnación, Dreamlandia, El Otro, Prospect, El Paso Blue, Santos & Santos, Prospect have been mounted at theaters across the country. Selected Awards: 2019 Distinguished Achievement in the American Theatre Award from the William Inge Center for the Arts, 2018 Imagen Award for his consultancy on Disney-Pixar's Coco, 2015 Distinguished Achievement Award from the Texas State University Black and Latino Playwrights Conference, 2014 Pen Center Literary Award for Drama, United States Artists Fellowship for 2012, 2003 National Latino Playwriting Award. Author: Retablos: Stories from A Life Lived Along the Border, published by City Lights Publishers (Silver Indies Award for Book of the Year, National Reading Group Month's Committee for the Great Group Reads 2019 Selections); Delirio (forthcoming).

About the Folger Shakespeare Library:

The Folger Shakespeare Library showcases the utility of Shakespeare and the humanities in cultivating healthy civic life. Anchored by the world's largest Shakespeare collection, the Folger is also home to a world-renowned collection of books, manuscripts, and prints from the 1500s to the early 1700s. Visitors to the Folger can choose how they want to experience the arts and humanities, from interactive exhibitions to captivating performances, and from pathbreaking research to transformative educational programming. The Folger fosters curiosity, creativity, and critical thinking and welcomes visitors from Washington, DC and from across the globe. Learn more at www.folger.edu.

About Folger Theatre

The award-winning Folger Theatre in our nation's capital bridges the arts and humanities through transformational performances and programming that speak inclusively to the human experience. Under the leadership of Artistic Director Karen Ann Daniels, Folger Theatre continues its legacy through exciting interpretations and adaptations of Shakespeare and expands the classical canon through cultivating today's artists and commissioning new work that is in dialogue with the concerns and issues of our time. Folger Theatre thrives both on its historical stage and in the community, engaging audiences wherever they happen to be. For more on Folger Theatre, please visit www.folger.edu/theatre.

SOURCE Folger Shakespeare Library