Mary ranks high in authorship survey

The Shakespeare Authorship Coalition, of which I am a board member, recently hired NORC to conduct a survey of the general population with regard to the Shakespeare Authorship Question. Seventy percent of the respondents had never heard of the question, of course. But of those who were interested and had some knowledge, a question was posed at the end asking which candidate they felt was most likely to have written the works.

Most respondents chose William Shakespeare, but of the other candidates in the list, I was tickled to see that Mary Sidney had TWICE as many votes than Edward de Vere, the Earl of Oxford! As Jenny says, “It reminds us that the loudest voices do not always represent the majority opinion!” La!

This might be Mary’s year to become much more widely known as author, this year, 2023, which is the 400th anniversary of her publication of the First Folio. ;-)

Close readings of the “Shakespeare” plays—join us!

It is an enlightening thing to closely read the plays of “Shakespeare,” especially out loud and in community. I never cease to be amazed at what sorts of insights we gather in these close reads, with so many bright minds (doubters and non-doubters of authorship alike), everyone seeing different angles and possibilities. We read slowly and carefully, with a lot of discussion to make sure we understand all we can along the way.

Please join us! No experience necessary. If you are interested in Mary Sidney as author, you will really enjoy reading the plays aloud and talking about them to better understand just how brilliant and educated a mind was necessary to write these. Check out our iReadShakespeare Meetup site for upcoming sessions.

And check out our other site, iReadShakespeare.org for more information on why to read the plays and to get support for starting your own group. :-)

Aurore Evain's performance of Mary Sidney alias Shakespeare in Paris

An actress and writer in France has been working on a performance of her show, Mary Sidney alias Shakespeare. It was recently performed in Paris and reviewed in the New York Times! The author of the NYT article, Laura Cappelle, asks, “How would the plays be tackled if a woman’s name were attached to them?”

Cappelle admits, “Yet over the course of two hours, with just two lecterns and a few projections, Evain, who is also a theater historian, presented such a wide range of circumstantial evidence drawn from Williams’s Sweet Swan of Avon — as well as potential rebuttals, with vivid help from the actress Fanny Zeller — that I started questioning my own beliefs.”

Aurore tells me in an email, “The more I dive into the story of Mary Sidney, the more I reread Shakespeare's plays in a different way (and the more I want to stage them again, under the name of Mary Sidney!).”

The screenshot above is one frame from a confidential link on YouTube. Thank you, Ms. Evain and Ms. Cappelle!

The first Cygnet is now available online

The first Cygnet journal of the Mary Sidney Society is now online. It was created before online publishing was easily available and before we published volumes 2 and 3, but here we are. :-) You can find it at this Amazon link.

It includes an article arguing that Mary Sidney was indeed the author of Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece; an investigation into the role play by women in sixteenth-century poetry and manuscript production in Scotland; a book review of Pseudonymous Shakespeare: Rioting Language in the Sidney Circle; esoteric insights into Mary Sidney’s character; and more.

Television series possibility

I just signed a contract with Stay Gold Features who want to do a television series about Mary Sidney as author! The founder and producer, Daniela Taplin Lundberg, was the recipient of the 2020 Hollywood Critics Association award, “Producer of the Decade.” Perhaps Mary Sidney’s time of acknowledgement is growing nearer. :-)

The Shakespearean Authorship Trust

Some fun news. :-) Many years ago, Mark Rylance invited me to be an Honorary Trustee of the Shakespearean Authorship Trust that was founded in London in 1922. Because of these days of the pandemic, the Board of Trustees meets online and so Mark and William Leahy, current president of the Trust, invited me to be a full Trustee on the Board. I am honored and delighted.

The Authorship Trust does not preference one candidate over the other but promotes all. If you’re interested in this most remarkable and important question of authorship, you might consider becoming a member!

anon!
Robin

The latest Cygnet is available

Good morrow, good friends!

We just wanted to let you know that the latest edition of the Mary Sidney journal, The Cygnet, is now available on Amazon. Discover the only source of the words to Desdemona’s willow song, alchemy in the canon, and more.

All the best!
Robin

See a First Folio in 2016! Be part of “the great Variety of Readers!”

The Folger Shakespeare Library is sharing their First Folios with all 50 states in the USA, Washington, DC, and Puerto Rico

The First Folio will be coming to New Mexico in February, 2015, and will be displayed at the New Mexico Museum of Art, near the Plaza in Santa Fe!

The Folger Shakespeare Library, along with the support of the American Library Association, the Cincinnati Museum Center and the National Endowment for the Arts, will be sending First Folios out across the United States and to Puerto Rico from the Folger's Washington, DC, home base. The Folger Library web site has information about the Folger First Folio Tour, which shows locations and dates, and you can enter an address or view the full list to find a Folio near you. (The Folger's home web site is here.)

There are many exciting events surrounding the arrival in New Mexico of one of the First Folios. These folio collections contain thirty-six of the plays in the Shakespearean canon and include a dedication to "the great Variety of Readers." New Mexico proudly has a great variety of people, and many of us consider ourselves a part of that great variety of readers! The exhibit at the New Mexico Museum of Art is titled "First Folio! The Book that Gave Us Shakespeare." See the museum's web site at: <NMartmuseum.org/shakespeare/> . The rumor is that the First Folio will be opened to the page that has Hamlet's famous question: "To be, or not to be . . ." 

For more information about the First Folio and the evolving events happening in New Mexico, see the International Shakespeare Center Santa Fe web site: <InternationalShakespeare.Center>. The opening night reception in Santa Fe is on February 5, starting at 5:30 P.M. at the New Mexico Museum of Art, 107 West Palace Avenue, and it is free. It definitely will be the place to be. See you there!