Folger Friday: Ayanna Thompson (2013)

The talk Folger Friday: Ayanna Thompson (2013) was held on November 8, 2013 in the Folger's Elizabethan Theatre, as part of the Talks and Screenings at the Folger. Ayanna Thompson, a leading scholar of Shakespeare and performance studies, spoke on Romeo and Juliet (Folger Theatre, 2013) represented on stage and in Here Is a Play Fitted: Four Centuries of Staging Shakespeare, part of the Exhibitions at the Folger.

VisitRomeo and Juliet for further information on the play, or William Shakespeare's plays to access more of the Bard's works.

Ayanna Thompson

Ayanna Thompson is Professor of English at George Washington University. She specializes in Renaissance drama and focuses on issues of race in/as performance. She is the author of Passing Strange: Shakespeare, Race, and Contemporary America (Oxford University Press, 2011) and Performing Race and Torture on the Early Modern Stage (Routledge, 2008), and she is the editor of Weyward Macbeth: Intersections of Race and Performance (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010) (co-edited with Scott Newstok) and Colorblind Shakespeare: New Perspectives on Race and Performance (Routledge, 2006). Professor Thompson is a Trustee of the Shakespeare Association of America.