West Chester University will celebrate the 400th anniversary of the publication of William Shakespeare’s First Folio with a Fortnight of Festivities, a multi-week festival with free, public events taking place on West Chester University’s campus from April 10–23, 2023. The festival will culminate in a production of Twelfth Night, complete with the erection of a “Globe-like” theatre, on the university’s Quad on April 23 at 3 PM.

The First Folio is the first collected edition of William Shakespeare’s plays, collated, and published in 1623, seven years after Shakespeare’s death. Of the 750 initial copies, West Chester University is the owner of one of the approximately 200 copies that remain in the world.

The First Folio will be on display in the Francis Harvey Green Library at multiple times throughout the festival. The premiere showing will take place on April 10 at 12 PM and will coincide with the opening of the special library exhibition “A Great Variety of Readers: Celebrating 400 Years of Shakespeare’s First Folio.”

Special Collections Librarian Ronald McColl said, “West Chester University is honored and very fortunate to own one of the most desired and rare books of the world. Without the First Folio, we might never know some of Shakespeare’s greatest works, including Macbeth, Twelfth Night, [and] The Tempest. The First Folio was also the first to divide Shakespeare’s plays into comedies, tragedies, and histories. We look forward to sharing the First Folio with members of our campus community, as well as with the public.”

West Chester University acquired the First Folio through a generous gift from the son of George Morris Philips, principal for 40 years and namesake to West Chester University’s Philips Memorial Building and the Philips Autograph Library. The university’s internationally renowned Poetry Center will host several readings and lectures, as well as a student (K–12) sonnet-writing contest and awards ceremony.

The Fortnight of Festivities events schedule is here.

Learn more at West Chester University.