To Hear Her Speak: Black Women and Shakespeare

First Folio 67 is shown beside a handwritten record of enslaved people from the Turner's Hall plantation. The Fitzherbert family owned the book during the slave trade era, and Henry and Emily Folger bought it in 1924. Phillis Wheatley's copybook, lent by Emory University, sits next to it.

Around that are nearly 100 objects in four chronological sections, from a map of where Black women lived and worked in Shakespeare's London to Toni Morrison's handwritten notes on her play Desdemona and a playbill for Maya Angelou's Macbeth at Wake Forest. At one point you sit down in a recreated 1950s New York living room modelled on Lorraine Hansberry's, where a television plays archival footage of Morrison and Angelou on Shakespeare.

Entry is free, with a $15 donation recommended. Walk-ins get in as capacity allows; only a timed-entry pass guarantees a slot. The audio guide, narrated by Adjoa Andoh, runs on the Bloomberg Connects app, so bring headphones. Curator Patricia Akhimie gives a talk on 7 November at 7pm.