Rosa Joshi

Director Rosa Joshi is a lover of classical theater, particularly the work of William Shakespeare. She is also committed to producing theater in which the cast reflects the demographics of the audience, and she is passionate about creating work that has big, juicy roles for women. That might pose a dilemma to a director who is driven by the text of the play—as Joshi is. But she approaches casting creatively—casting actors of colors in all roles and switching the gender of the play’s characters—so that in her current production of I Henry IV at the Folger Theatre, Wooster, Poins, and Vernon are played by women. Additionally, she is one of the founders of the Upstart Crow Collective—a theater group that creates classical work in which all the parts are played by women. That creative flexibility is one of the reasons Joshi loves theater. As she noted, “There’s nothing you can’t do if you ask the audience to engage their imagination.” Listen to my conversation with Joshi about theater, imagination, Shakespeare, and I Henry IV. Her passion is contagious!