Director Rosa Joshi on Julius Caesar Today
Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited
Release Date: 08/26/2025
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Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited
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Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited
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Director Rosa Joshi on Julius Caesar Today
Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited
Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar feels urgently contemporary in Rosa Joshi’s new production at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival—one of America’s largest and longest-running theater festivals, now in its 90th season. Staged in partnership with Seattle’s upstart crow collective, the production explores the threat of autocracy, drawing on global histories of dictatorship. Performed entirely by women and nonbinary actors, Joshi’s Julius Caesar offers new perspectives on a historically male-dominated political landscape. The result is a fresh reading of...
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Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited
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Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited
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Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited
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Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited
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Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited
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Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited
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King Lear and Mao’s China, with Nan Z. Da
Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited
Nan Z. Da, in her book The Chinese Tragedy of King Lear, finds unsettling parallels between Shakespeare’s play and 20th-century China under Mao Zedong. Da, a literature professor at Johns Hopkins University, weaves together personal history and literary analysis to reveal how King Lear reflects—and even anticipates—the emotional and political horrors of authoritarian regimes. From public punishments to desperate displays of flattery, from state paranoia to family betrayal, she shows how Shakespeare’s tragedy resonates with the lived experiences of generations shaped by Maoism. She...
info_outlineShakespeare’s Julius Caesar feels urgently contemporary in Rosa Joshi’s new production at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival—one of America’s largest and longest-running theater festivals, now in its 90th season. Staged in partnership with Seattle’s upstart crow collective, the production explores the threat of autocracy, drawing on global histories of dictatorship.
Performed entirely by women and nonbinary actors, Joshi’s Julius Caesar offers new perspectives on a historically male-dominated political landscape. The result is a fresh reading of Shakespeare’s classic tale of power, loyalty, and betrayal.
In this episode, Joshi reflects on the production, the politics of performance, and why Shakespeare’s plays continue to illuminate moments of crisis.
>> Discover more about Julius Caesar at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival
From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast. Published August 25, 2025. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This episode was produced by Matt Frassica. Garland Scott is the executive producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster. We had help with web production from Paola García Acuña. Leonor Fernandez edits our transcripts. Final mixing services are provided by Clean Cuts at Three Seas, Inc.
Rosa Joshi (she/her) is a director, producer and educator. She currently serves as Associate Artistic Director of Oregon Shakespeare Festival.
Rosa’s directing work spans from Shakespeare to modern classics and contemporary plays. Throughout her career she has created work independently through self-producing, and in 2006 she co-founded upstart crow collective a company that produces classical plays with diverse casts of women and non-binary people. With upstart crow, she has directed King John, Bring Down the House, Richard III, Titus Andronicus, and Coriolanus. She is committed to creating ambitious productions of classical work featuring women, non-binary, and BIPOC artists.
As Interim Artistic Director of Northwest Asian American Theatre, Rosa produced a range of Asian American performances, including: A-Fest, an international performance festival; Traces, a world premiere multi-disciplinary, multi-media, international collaborative work. She was also a Resident Director and Artistic Director of the Second Company at New City Theater, where she directed and produced various classical and contemporary plays.
Rosa has been a faculty member at Seattle University and has also taught at The Old Globe University of San Diego Shiley Graduate Theatre Program, Hong Kong University, Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts, and Cornish College for the Arts.
Rosa holds an MFA in Directing from the Yale School of Drama and a BA in Theatre and Psychology from Bucknell University.