WHAT

The world premiere of playwright Abraham Alan Ross’s topical new play ELIZABETH SHAKESPEARE and the ASTUTE DETECTIVE. Finally after 400 years the truth is revealed.  Who really wrote those “Shakespeare” plays? Elizabeth says she is a descendant of the Bard and is willing to kill to protect his name.  But, with a simple key-stroke on his computer, the astute detective can prove Shakespeare didn’t write a single word of the plays and sonnets. It gets down to a duel of wits about wills and Wills (with a little romance along the way).

As recently as April 2010 the review of a new book by James Shapiro in The New York Times ran under the headline “Shakespeare: The Question of Authorship.” According to Shapiro the question goes back to the 19^th century and is still argued with passion today in the 21^st.  In an October 29, 2007 press release, veteran stars of stage, film, and TV, Michael York, Jeremy Irons and Ronald Emmerich, added their names to the Declaration of Reasonable Doubt, an entity established in England that questions the identity of William Shakespeare and whether he wrote the works ascribed to him. They joined more than 1,200 people, many of them academics and luminaries in politics, science and the arts, including such notables as Sigmund Freud, Mark Twain, Henry James, Walt Whitman, Charles Chaplin, Orson Welles, Mark Rylance and Sir Derek Jacobi, and as recently reported in The Wall Street Journal, retiring Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens.

In Ross’s historically accurate romantic comedy, ELIZABETH SHAKESPEARE and the ASTUTE DETECTIVE, The Astute Detective of the title, Tad Maxwell, an Oxfordian, believes that Edward de Vere, The Earl of Oxford was the true author of Shakespeare’s works.  Via his computer he conjures up The Bard and The Earl from their four centuries’ demise. His sleuthing brings him into conflict with Elizabeth Shakespeare, sexy Stratfordian, who is positive that William Shakespeare was the true author of his plays and sonnets.  As Tad tries to coax Elizabeth to his point of view, she fights her physical (and mental) attraction to this romantic iconoclast. With much at stake, the eventual outcome will surprise, and delight, Oxfordians, Stratfordians, and even those who don’t know their “Othello” from their “Pericles.”

“Very original! A romantic comedy in the fashion of a Kate Hepburn-Spencer Tracy vehicle!”

Rich Borowy, Accessibly Live Off Line

Fridays and Saturdays at 8:00

Sundays at 6:00

September 10 through October 24

(Please check or Calendar of Events for available show dates.)
 

Santa Monica Playhouse
The Main Stage

Santa Monica Playhouse
1211 4th Street
Santa Monica, CA 90401
 

$25 regular admission

$18 previews (September 10 September 17)

Discounts are available for students, seniors, teachers,

member of the military and groups of 8 or more

Santa Monica Playhouse, a not-for-profit 501 (c) 3 educational corporation founded in 1960, provides exciting and entertaining dramatic and comedic, classic and contemporary live theatrical productions, Family Theatre musicals, birthday and tea parties, theatre workshops and educational programming for young people, teens and adults, create-a-play classes and Mommy and Me events for pre-schoolers, daytime and after school classes and in-service in public and private schools, private coaching, consultation, published plays for youth, cultural exchange, international touring, and community outreach, as well as theatre rental space for productions, seminars, solo shows, concerts, recitals, lectures, meetings and more.