First look: D.C.'s reimagined Folger Shakespeare Library

Did you know: D.C. is home to the world's largest Shakespeare collection? But most people have never seen it.

Why it matters: That will soon change thanks to an $80.5 million, four-year reimagining of the Folger Shakespeare Library on Capitol Hill, which has pulled treasures from its vast vaults to display — many for the first time in 92 years.

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What's new: The library reopens on Friday with 12,000 feet of public space, including two exhibition halls, a forthcoming café Quill & Crumb, a new learning lab and research spaces, and an expanded gift shop, plus outdoor gardens.

📖 Flashback: New York oil magnate Henry Folger and wife Emily, both avid Shakespearean and literary collectors, planned the library in the late 19th century and filled it with their treasures. The collection now includes 10,000 editions of Shakespeare and 227,000 printed books.

• Upon opening in 1932, the Washington Post dubbed it a "Noble Shelter for Shakespeare's Treasures" — a marblesque monument, which in some ways doubles as a mausoleum.
• The ashes of both Folgers are interred in the stately Reading Room.

The renovated Folger with a new entrance. Photo courtesy of Alan Karchmer

🎭 Though the place was open to students and scholars, it wasn't widely accessible or inviting beyond its 1930s replica Elizabethan theater — the first of its kind in the U.S. — where professional actors and school groups "wake up the books," as the staff likes to say.

• Outgoing Folger director of 13 years Michael Witmore helped drive the new vision.

What they're saying: "Our goal was to take the very best things we had, bring them out, and use them to inspire people," Witmore told Axios on a pre-opening tour. But first, "We needed a front door." (There are now two public entrances).

• The second challenge was even harder than the buildout, which involved inserting a modern gallery wing under a historic landmark without disturbing it.
• "I want this place to be fun," says Witmore. "A place that will elevate you, challenge you with history, with tough conversations about who we are. A place that's deliberately inclusive of anyone who walks through the door."

Visitors can play with a 17th-century printing press replica. Photo courtesy of Lloyd Wolf

💎 Zoom in: Shakespeare's "First Folio" from 1623 is the gallery's new star. There are no manuscripts of Shakespeare's plays, only printed books, and it's the earliest, largest printed collection — without which many plays, like "Macbeth" and "The Tempest," might have been lost.

• Visitors can view the bound books and interact with scanned pages — spotting doodles or notes — or test their hand at type-setting with a replica 17th-century printing press.

The bottom line: You don't need to be a Shakespeare scholar to enjoy the exhibits. There's a toddler-age picture search, digital games, and exhibitions that explore "Shakespeare in D.C.," "Shakespeare in America," and Shakespeare as "The name on a book you never wanted to open," as one plaque says.

• In the old days, "People felt like they had to study up before they came," Peggy O'Brien, the library's education director, tells Axios. "We're not having that anymore."

If you go: Folger Shakespeare Library, 201 E Capitol St SE. Timed-entry passes are currently available and free, with a suggested donation of $15.

The new gardens with a commissioned poem by Rita Dove. Photo courtesy of Alan Karchmer The gallery is designed to be "like a garden" where visitors can stroll and discover. Photo courtesy of Alan Karchmer Exhibits include gems like the first printing of Romeo and Juliet from 1597. The gallery also explores themes of race, gender, and power. Photo courtesy of Lloyd Wolf