Press release from Wednesday April 11, 2007
Recent releases
- November 17, 2008
- Huntington Library staff sign Declaration.
- June 3, 2008
- Sir Derek Jacobi joins the Shakespeare Authorship Coalition as a SAC patron.
- December 1, 2007
- First annual report of the Shakespeare authorship coalition: the Coalition’s strategy is working! Over 1,200 people have signed the Declaration of Reasonable Doubt, and we’ve attracted enormous attention to the authorship issue. With each new signatory, it becomes more difficult for orthodox scholars to continue claiming that there is “no room for doubt” about the identity of William Shakespeare.
- September 23, 2007
- Nearly 800 additional signatories have signed the “Declaration of Reasonable Doubt About the Identity of William Shakespeare” in the two weeks since prominent Shakespearean actors Sir Derek Jacobi and Mark Rylance, former artistic director at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in London, gave the Declaration its launch in the U.K.
- July 2, 2007
- SAC adds 100 signers to the list of signatories of the “Declaration of Reasonable Doubt”.
- April 23, 2007
- SAC releases its first list of signatories of the “Declaration of Reasonable Doubt”, on the 391st anniversary of William Shakspere's death.
- April 14, 2007
- SAC and the Shakespeare Authorship Roundtable hold a signing ceremony to issue the “Declaration of Reasonable Doubt”
- April 11, 2007
- SAC and Shakespeare Authorship Roundtable to issue historic “Declaration of Reasonable Doubt”
SAC contact person: John Shahan at (909) 896-2006.
Claremont, California, April 11, 2007 — Most Shakespeare scholars have never given any credence to the authorship issue, but recent developments suggest this may be changing. Concordia University in Portland, Oregon, and Brunel University in West London, are both launching degree programs in authorship studies. Both will also hold declaration signings, starting at Concordia, also this Saturday. But the first signing will be held in Southern California, where the authorship declaration originated.
The first group of signatories includes founding members of the LA-based Shakespeare Authorship Roundtable (SAR) — Charles Champlin, former Arts Critic Emeritus for the Los Angeles Times, and his wife Peggy; John Crowley, former mayor of Pasadena, and his wife Barbara; Richard Roe, Pasadena attorney and author of the forthcoming book, Shakespeare in Italy, and his wife Jane; long-time SAR president Carole Sue Lipman, assistant to the head of production at DreamWorks Animation; and Pasadena attorney and Renaissance scholar-musician Sally Mosher. Also signing will be long-time SAR member and current SAC secretary Virginia Renner, former head of the Reader Services Department at the Huntington Library; and Mr. Louis Fantasia, former director of the Shakespeare's Globe Centre's "Teaching Shakespeare Through Performance Institute." Known authorship doubters Sir Michael York and Keanu Reeves have also been invited.
"Part of the problem is we've lacked a clear, concise, definitive statement of the reasons to doubt the Stratford man," said SAC Chairman John Shahan of Claremont, California. "The issue has not been readily accessible. Now, anyone can go to the SAC website at www.DoubtAboutWill.org, read the declaration, and see why so many have doubted: There's good reason to doubt the Stratford man. That's why we wrote the declaration — to make it accessible to anyone who may be curious about it. Anyone qualified to serve on a jury should be able to understand it. People can also sign it online."
"There is a genuine mystery here — the greatest mystery in all of literature, some have called it. Why is there a huge gap between the presumed author's life and works? Even many orthodox biographers have been frustrated by the difficulties of finding solid connections between what we know about the Stratford man and the works he is supposed to have written. The problem is not that little is known about him. The problem is that no document, dating from his lifetime, proves he was even a writer."
The Coalition also created a limited edition of 400 large (25" x 39") museum-quality posters of the declaration, each with spaces for ten signatures, so people can sign it and it can be widely displayed. "This is a great work of art, calling attention to something worth contemplating," Shahan said. "The message of this truly imposing masterwork is that the Authorship Issue is here to stay: 'So long as man can breathe, or eyes can see," Shakespeare wrote in sonnet 18, "So long lives this (his own masterwork), and this gives life to thee (the authorship issue).' Teachers should just get used to it."
SAC contact person: John Shahan at (909) 896-2006.