CONWAY — A traveling exhibition featuring the first collected edition of William Shakespeare’s plays will visit the University of Central Arkansas in 2016.
The Folger Shakespeare Library, in partnership with the Cincinnati Museum Center and the American Library Association, plans the traveling exhibition of “First Folio! The Book That Gave Us Shakespeare,” with stops in all 50 states, Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C.
UCA and its Arkansas Shakespeare Theatre will host the exhibition at the university’s Baum Gallery from June 7 through July 12, 2016.
“We are honored to have been selected as one of the institutions to help share this extraordinary part of the world’s cultural heritage from the Folger Shakespeare Library’s collection,” Mary Ruth Marotte, executive director of Arkansas Shakespeare Theatre, said in a UCA-issued news release last week. “For most people, this will be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to come within inches of one of the most influential books in history.”
The Shakespeare Theatre also will celebrate its 10th anniversary season.
The First Folio — published in 1623, seven years after the playwright’s death — is the first collected edition of Shakespeare’s plays. Eighteen of his plays — including Macbeth, Julius Caesar and Twelfth Night — appeared for the first time in print in that collection.
“The First Folio is the book that gave us Shakespeare,” Michael Witmore, the Folger Shakespeare Library’s director, said in the release. “We are delighted that we can share this precious resource with people everywhere, from San Diego, Calif., to Gurabo, Puerto Rico, from Eugene, Ore., to Duluth, Minn.”
The Folger Shakespeare Library holds 82 copies of the First Folio, the world’s largest collection and more than a third of the 233 known copies, UCA said.
In 2001, a First Folio sold for $6.2 million. Another one sold for $5.2 million in 2006.
The exhibition also will include a multipanel exhibition looking at the significance of Shakespeare, along with additional digital content and interactive activities.
UCA plans numerous related programs.