July 16, 2025
Linda Blaser
Catherine Reedy tapped for reaction to Folger Shakespeare Library immersive performance
When Shakespeare’s Coriolanus spilled off the stage and into the crowd during a bold, immersive performance in Chicago, Visiting Assistant Professor of English Catherine Reedy was not just watching the play—she was living it.
Her vivid reflections on the experience were recently featured in a Folger Shakespeare Library article, where the College’s resident Shakespeare expert described how being swept into the performance alongside the actors and audience transformed her understanding of the play’s powerful themes of politics, persuasion, and mob mentality.
The article, “What is the city but the people?,” highlights the company’s immersive approach to Shakespeare, in which the audience becomes part of the performance—blurring the line between actor and spectator.
“You’re blended in with the actors scurrying past you, and watching the crowd respond in real time while you’re responding with them,” Reedy is quoted about the performance.
The result, she says, was an exhilarating but disorienting experience that made her feel as though she had joined the on-stage mob—an effect that powerfully echoed the play’s political themes.
Reedy teaches courses in early modern literature, Shakespeare, and performance studies, often encouraging students to explore how classic texts come alive in contemporary spaces. Her inclusion in the Folger article underscores the kind of thought-provoking work that defines the College’s English program and its commitment to hands-on, experiential learning.
About the Folger Shakespeare Library
The Folger Shakespeare Library is an independent research library on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. It has the world's largest collection of the printed works of William Shakespeare, and is a primary repository for rare materials from the early modern period in Britain and Europe.