MEDIA ADVISORY: Shakespeare’s "First Folio" exhibition opens Monday with jazz funeral
What: Opening of “First Folio! The Book That Gave Us Shakespeare,” a national traveling exhibition of one of the world’s most treasured books. Published seven years after Shakespeare’s death in 1623, it presents 36 of Shakespeare’s plays in a deluxe format, including Macbeth, Julius Caesar, Twelfth Night, The Tempest, Antony and Cleopatra, The Comedy of Errors and As You Like It.
When: May 9 beginning at 5:30 p.m. with a VIP reception, followed by a jazz funeral at 6:30 p.m. to mark the 400th anniversary of the Bard’s death. The jazz funeral will be led by Michael White and the Original Liberty Jazz Band. The exhibition also opens to the public at 6:30 p.m..
Where: Newcomb Art Museum on Tulane’s uptown campus. (Building 81 on campus map) Media parking available in the Newcomb Quad circle.
Who: VIPS include Scott Hutcheson, advisor to the mayor for cultural economy (representing Mayor Mitch Landrieu), Tulane President Mike Fitts, Kathleen Lynch of the Folger Institute of the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington D.C., benefactors Stuart and Mimi Rose and Tulane professor Peter Cooley, poet laureate of Louisiana.
More: The event also includes a spoken word poetry performance of Hamlet’s “To Be or Not To Be” soliloquy by Gian Smith and the laying of a wreath at the "First Folio" display. The exhibition, which is open through May 31, is organized by the Folger Shakespeare Library and produced in association with the American Library Association and the Cincinnati Museum Center. The Tulane School of Liberal Arts and Newcomb Art Museum are the local organizers.
