By Mike Hausberg

Institutions always celebrate their "firsts." There's something exciting about a new milestone, proof that an organization is still on the cutting edge, still has something new to offer. It's a way to mark time, to rejoice, to look forward. It's the feeling of being part of something. Now in its 90th year, The Old Globe has had many firsts: first public performances (on our outdoor green in 1935), first show sent to Broadway (Into the Woods in 1987), first Globe for All community tour (10 stops across San Diego in 2014), and many more in between.

But it's rare that a theatre company celebrates a "last."

With our production of Henry 6, The Old Globe completes the Shakespeare canon. The playwright's historical epic is the last of his works to be put on the Globe's stages, distilled from three separate plays to this two-part adaptation from Barry Edelstein. We've now produced all 36 plays from the Bard's First Folio-and for the sticklers out there, yes, we're also counting Pericles and The Two Noble Kinsmen as numbers 37 and 38. Some of these we've presented many times, some just once, but the Globe, an institution that has held Shakespeare so close to its heart, has now done them all, an achievement only a few theatres in the country can boast.

But why does it matter that we've completed the canon? After all, the Bard is certainly getting on in years (age 460 as of April), and countless popular, talented writers have faded away with the passage of time and been replaced in our consciousness. But Shakespeare has endured because of the uncommon insight he brings to the stage, a view of humanity so incisive and fundamental that it still speaks to our lives all these centuries later. It's what makes his works timeless. His plays are a prism through which we again and again find the full spectrum of the human experience.

Plus, they're just plain entertaining. A climactic swordfight will always be thrilling, a clandestine love letter will always be enchanting, a pompous buffoon will always be funny. Shakespeare marries his profoundly explored themes with audience-pleasing stage antics, and by some miracle these two halves coalesce into an even greater whole.

That is why we still produce Shakespeare, and why completing the canon is worth celebrating: because to share all of Shakespeare's works is to share the full breadth of the glory of existing in this world, and there is simply no more important a service we can provide as a theatre company.

So as the Globe marks another milestone in its history, this "last" actually becomes another "first," the first page of a new chapter with this singular dramatist, our relationship renewed in a novel way. As The Old Globe lives on, so shall Shakespeare, as he always has. Completing the canon is just the beginning.