The Lewes Public Library Shakespeare Festival is showing the 2010 production of The Tempest.In Writer, Producer, and Director Julie Taymor's version of The Tempest, the main character is now a woman named Prospera (Dame Helen Mirren). Going back to the sixteenth or seventeenth century, women practicing the magical arts of alchemy were often convicted of witchcraft. In Taymor's version, Prospera is usurped by her brother and sent off with her four-year daughter on a ship. She ends up on an island; it's a tabula rasa: no society, so the mother figure becomes a father figure to Miranda (Felicity Jones). This leads to the power struggle and balance between Caliban (Djimon Hounsou) and Prospera; a struggle not about brawn, but about intellect.

The Shakespeare Festival, a program of the Lewes Public Library since 2015, seeks to provide the community with experiences that foster the understanding of Shakespeare and the world in which he lived and wrote. In addition the Festival fosters the development of new works celebrating the spoken word and hosting performances of classical texts. The Festival is partially funded by a grant from the Delaware Humanities, a state program of the National Endowment for the Humanities, and by a grant from the Delaware Division of the Arts, a state agency, in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts. The Division promotes Delaware arts events on DelawareScene.com.