‘The Playhouse’ a triumphant return to live performance
‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’Through Aug. 28Folger Theatre at the National Building Museum401 F St., N.W.$20-$85Events.folger.edu Ordinarily set designer Tony Cisek is charged with making a playwright’s story shine.
His latest project was a little different. As an integral player in Folger Theatre’s return to live performance, Cisek directed the creation of The Playhouse, the National Building Museum’s current Summer Block Party installation and the stage for performances of an abbreviated 90-minute intermission-less version of Shakespeare’s magical comedy “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” The project comes from a moment of synergy where the University of South Carolina’s idea for a pop-up theater met the Folger’s need for a venue while the Folger Shakespeare Library undergoes major renovations, mostly involving public space and its closed, marble exterior, he explains.
And the National Building Museum, looking for vital summer programming, was happy to join the partnership. After pandemic-related postponements and delays, Cisek took the helm, inheriting both a set designed by University of South Carolina’s Jim Hunter, cleverly made to pack up on two tractor trailers and move from stop to stop with Washington as its first stop, and exhibitions including a life-sized immersive installation based on Joanna Robson’s book “A Knavish Lad,” which is a part of the Folger Shakespeare Library collection. “I’d never worked where the central aesthetic is not mine,” says the out designer. “This has been more about pragmatics and logistics, and the art part really took a backseat.
But that’s OK. I go in wanting every show to succeed and you never at the beginning know what that’s going to take but you do it.” Confronted with an admittedly
