The festival, announced yesterday at the Folger Shakespeare Library, is the brainchild of Kennedy Center President Michael M. Kaiser and will be curated by Shakespeare Theatre Artistic Director Michael Kahn.

The programming, which Kaiser and Kahn first discussed two years ago, will have a prismatic effect as Shakespeare gets filtered across artistic disciplines. Major theater, opera and dance companies will take part, as will choral groups and museums.

At the Kennedy Center, the Kirov Ballet of the Mariinsky Theatre will present its legendary 1940 production of "Romeo and Juliet," and the Kirov Opera will offer Verdi's "Falstaff."

But although the Washington Ballet knows what it intends to do -- a program of seven new works by seven choreographers on Shakespearean themes as the latest in its "7 x 7" series -- it does not know where it will perform.