Video description: View showing interior of gallery space with various exhibits. A case of first folios illuminates with programmatic lighting, a visitor creates a projected message using physical words, two visitors spar using shakespearean quotations, and a visitor uncovers hidden clues about Shakespeare's work at a touchscreen.
The Folger Shakespeare Library
The Folger Shakespeare Library houses the world’s largest collection of Shakespeare materials, including over 80 First Folios.
Designed in partnership with Studio Joseph, the Shakespeare Exhibition Hall offers an accessible, engaging, and inviting space for 21st-century audiences to connect with one of history’s most influential playwrights.
Shake Up Your Shakespeare
Making language approachable
Shake up Your Shakespeare is an immersive, theatrical installation inspired by a former Director of Education's dynamic card-based exercises with students. Players act out Shakespearean lines, with color-coded text to guide performance.
Video description: Three visitors interact with the interactive "Shake Up Your Shakespeare.” An illuminated touchpanel lights up four buttons that visitors can choose from: "Bless," "Burn," "Bonus," and "Bye!”.
Featuring both single and two-player modes, the experience is enhanced by custom hardware, projection mapping, and shifting lights that spotlight the active player.
This installation transforms space into a magical, multi-dimensional theatre, bringing Shakespeare to life in unexpected ways.
The First Folios
Illuminating an historic collection
The Folger Shakespeare Library holds the world’s largest collection of First Folios, with over 80 copies—about a third of the estimated surviving editions—making it the most significant repository of this rare and valuable book.
Bluecadet programmed a lighting sequence embedded into the shelves of the artifact case that acts as a sculptural data visualization, illuminating groupings of the folios, with each grouping explained by a key legend.
Video description: Visitors inside a gallery engage with various interactives: two touch-walls with projected images and a touchscreen opposite an illuminated folio case. A visitor then strolls in front the folio case, gazing inside.
Video description: The opening screens from an in-gallery interactive. The text onscreen says, “These folios don’t just hold Shakespeare’s plays… they tell stories of some of the people who’ve touched them over the past 400 years. What stories will you uncover?”
Video description: A person interacts with a digital display, playing a "spot the difference" game featuring two portraits of Shakespeare. They move a digital magnifying glass over his face.
In front of the lighting case, a pair of touchscreens allow visitors to explore the folios through three distinct lenses—Detective, Storyteller, and Collector—offering unique insights into these rare artifacts.
The Wings
Unpacking complex stories
Adjacent to the folio case, The Wings feature LED plaques with capacitive touch, introducing the folios and their significance to modern audiences. This installation was a deeply collaborative effort involving curators, fabricators, and lighting designers, ensuring the folios' preservation while emphasizing their cultural importance.
Video description: A person engages with a display that reads "How much can one book matter?" The display changes, and colorful illustrations and text are projected describing some of the history behind the First Folios.
Printing with Light
Getting hands-on
Printing with Light is a physio-digital installation that reimagines the traditional printing press. Featuring two interactive printing stations with monitors, visitors assemble letter blocks on a surface, which are then scanned by computer vision technology. The selected text is projected digitally with a rich texture, mimicking the look of stamped ink.
Video description: Three visitors gather around a table, assembling word blocks and placing them into a digital, light-based "printing press." The phrases they create are then projected onto a screen above them. In the background, other visitors explore other parts of the exhibition.
This experience blends physical interaction with digital artistry, allowing visitors to explore the art of printing, and some of Shakespeare’s most evocative language, in a modern, engaging way.
Awards & Press
Comm Arts
2025 Interactive Annual Featured Exhibit
The New York Times
Project opening featured in piece, “The Folger Library Wants to Reintroduce You to Shakespeare”
The Washington Post
Project opening featured in piece, “The world’s largest Shakespeare collection finally has the home it deserves”
The Guardian
Project featured in piece, “We’re going to find the next Shakesepare: inside DC’s $80m library renovation”
Creative Partners
Studio Joseph
Kubik Maltbie
Storythings
Naho Kubota
Dan King
Becker & Frondorf
Greg Prickman | Eric Weinmann Librarian and Director of CollectionsBluecadet was an invaluable partner in transforming our notions of what an exhibition of rare books and Shakespeare could be. We felt strongly that a Shakespeare exhibition should be a no-intimidation zone, and Bluecadet designed media experiences that embraced this challenge whole-heartedly.
