By Kenneth Best for UConn Today
UConn has been selected as a host site for a national traveling exhibition in 2016 for “First Folio! The Book That Gave Us Shakespeare.”
The “First Folio” is the first collected edition of William Shakespeare’s plays published in 1623 by two of his fellow actors, seven years after the Bard’s death. The collection includes 18 plays that would otherwise have been lost, including “Macbeth,” Julius Caesar,” “Twelfth Night,” “The Tempest,” “Antony and Cleopatra,” “The Comedy of Errors” and As You Like It.” The exhibition will take place in the Gilman Gallery at the William Benton Museum of Art in Storrs.
The tour is a partnership between The Folger Shakespeare Library, Cincinnati Museum Center and the American Library Association and will be hosted by one institution in all 50 states, Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico to mark the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s passing. Specific dates for the tour host sites will be announced in April.
“As an institution with a strong history of championing the dramatic classics through our resident theater, Connecticut Repertory Theatre, we are very proud to have the opportunity to host this exhibition for our state,” says Brid Grant, dean of UConn’s School of Fine Arts. “This is an important document in the life of the arts and our students and wider community to experience here on campus.”
Adds Vincent Cardinal, head of the Department of Dramatic Arts and artistic director of CRT: “Connecting the living and breathing work we do in our studios and on our stages to this first collected publication of Shakespeare’s plays will be an unforgettable opportunity for our students, faculty, staff and audiences.”
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