Shakespeare’s First Folio Arrives at FIU
About the exhibit
The folio is the first collected edition of Shakespeare’s plays. It was published in 1623, seven years after Shakespeare’s death, by his colleagues hoping to preserve them for future generations. The collection saved 18 plays that had not previously appeared in print, including Antony and Cleopatra, As You Like It, Julius Caesar, Macbeth, The Comedy of Errors, The Tempest, and Twelfth Night.
The 500-square-foot traveling exhibit, which includes digital content and interactive activities, tells a two-part story. The first is about the book itself. The second is about Shakespeare’s plays and their significance. When the first folio arrives in Miami, its pages will be opened to the “to be or not to be” soliloquy from Hamlet — one of the most quoted selection of words ever written.
The Folger Shakespeare Library, in collaboration with Cincinnati Museum Center and the American Library Association, is touring the First Folio of Shakespeare to all 50 states, Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico. First Folio! The Book that Gave Us Shakespeare has been made possible in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities: Exploring the human endeavor, and by the support of Google.org and Vinton and Sigrid Cerf. Sponsorship opportunities of this major exhibition and the Folger’s other Wonder of Will programs commemorating the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death are available; learn more at www.folger.edu. For the latest NPR story about the First Folio’s tour, click here.
For more information about the First Folio at FIU, click here.
Musical Activities
Tuesday September 26, 2015, 5:30–7:30pm, FIU School of Music Recital Hall, WPAC 150: Male Soprano Rob Crowe in a special guest lecture on English Lute Song in the Seventeenth Century.
Saturday October 10, 2015, 1-2:15pm, MARC, Symposium on the Study and Teaching of Shakespeare for the Miami-Dade County Public Schools: Dr. Dolata and the FIU Collegium Musicum in “The Music of Shakespeare’s Period.”
Saturday February 6, 2016: FIU Collegium Musicum at the Opening Reception. For photos of the performance, click here.
Friday February 19, 2016: John Blow’s Venus and Adonis, a collaborative opera-theatre production between the FIU School of Music and the Department of Theatre featuring the Collegium Musicum with a special guest appearance by members of the Conchita Espinosa Academy Children’s Chorus at the Southern Chapter Meeting of the American Musicological Society at Palm Beach Atlantic University’s Helen K. Persson Recital Hall at the Vera Lea Rinker Hall, in West Palm Beach.
Sunday February 21, 2016 at 3 pm and Monday February 22, 2016 at 7:30 pm: John Blow’s Venus and Adonis, a collaborative opera-theatre production between the FIU School of Music and the Department of Theatre featuring the Collegium Musicum with a special guest appearance by members of the Conchita Espinosa Academy Children’s Chorus at FIU’s Herbert and Nicole Wertheim Concert Hall.
Saturday February 27, 2016: FIU Collegium Musicum at Closing Reception.
Academic Support
In support of the First Folio exhibition, this fall the topic for MUH 6937/4680 Special Topics in Music History/Music History Seminar will be Music in Shakespeare & Shakespeare in Music. For more information, click here.