Oberon Shakespeare Study Group

An "Anonymous Debate live webcast with director Roland Emmerich" was announced on the Anonymous Facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=222178577836677 . The announcement said: "V isit our Facebook page Wednesday, 9/28 at 8:00 PM PST and participate in a LIVE debate with Anonymous director Roland Emmerich." That's 11 p.m. here in Michigan tomorrow, Wednesday, September 28, 2011. Update 09/28/11: CinemaBlend says Alan Nelson will debate Emmerich, Orloff and Beauclerk on the Facebook live webcast tonight: Sony has announced that tomorrow [Wed.] night, at 8:15pm PST [11:15 p.m. EST -- both zones are on DST], Emmerich, executive producer/writer John Orloff and historian Charles Beauclerk are going to stage a live debate against UC Berkeley Professor Alan H. Nelson, the subject being the validity of Shakespeare's work. The whole thing will be broadcast live on the movie's official Facebook page, which you can find  HERE . Paired wi...

Shakespeare Fellowship president Earl Showerman released the schedule for the annual joint conference of the Shakespeare Fellowship and the Shakespeare Oxford Society October 13-16, 2001 in Washington DC. Four Oberon Shakespeare Society members will present papers to the conference on Friday, October 14.  Oberon chair R. Thomas Hunter, PhD and Oberon treasurer Thomas Townsend will present You Had to Be There:  Shakespeare and  Romeo and Juliet. Tom Hunter said: We explore what we can learn from this play that Stratfordians have missed when one proceeds on the basis that Edward de Vere, the 17 th   Earl of Oxford, had something to do with its writing. By means of a close examination of local detail in the play, its euphuistic language, its humanist philosophy and its connections to Edward de Vere, we discover implications for earlier dating of the play and evidence that the playwright must have had personal knowledge of Verona and northern...

Sony representative Stephanie Gonzales of Allied Integrated Marketing in Bloomfield Hills confirmed today that Roland Emmerich's film, Anonymous, will be screened for an audience of University of Michigan English literature and history classes at 7 p.m. September 29 at the State Theater in Ann Arbor. Emmerich, screenwriter John Orloff, and author Charles Beauclerk will be in Ann Arbor to meet with media representatives and take part in a panel discussion after the Anonymous screening a week from today. University of Michigan associate professor Doug Trevor will also take part in the discussion. " Sony Pictures asked if I'd serve on a panel to provide an academic perspective on the question of authorship in Shakespeare studies," Trevor said. "I thought my students might enjoy seeing the film so I agreed. . . . I look forward to seeing the film." A contingent of 18 Oberon members will also attend, courtesy of Karie DiNardo, senior publicist at Sony Pic...

Kurt Kreiler made quite a splash in the German press two years ago when his biography of the seventeenth earl of Oxford, Edward de Vere, was published as  Der Mann der Shakespeare erfand (The Man who Invented Shakespeare). The Shakespeare Oxford Society News page online reported on the coverage including some translations of German reviews. (See list of links at the end of this article.)   Kreiler's book is now available in English translation under the title Anonymous Shake-Speare Earl of Oxford: the Man Behind. This English translation of Kreiler's book is available in ebook format from Amazon and other outlets for  $9.99.  Richard Malim of the De Vere Society reported on Nina Green's Phaeton email list that Kreiler would be on hand along with Roland Emmerich and a German academic to discuss Emmerich's film about the Shakespeare authorship, Anonymous , when it is screened on October 14, 2011 at the Frankfurt Book Fair. More information about his book i...

From Oberon Chair R. Thomas Hunter, PhD: Our Oberon meeting is this coming Thursday, Sept. 22, at the Farmington Library,  32737 W. 12 Mile Road, Farmington Hills, MI 48334,  usual time 7 p.m. We will get the first exciting news about the new blockbuster Oxfordian film  Anonymous  from Richard Joyrich, fresh from the Concordia Conference and the first (unofficial) showing of the film.  Not only did attendees see the film, they had director Roland Emmerich himself leading the discussion and meeting participants and signing autographs.  Richard will render his always informed and detailed review of the conference with special attention to  Anonymous. The film has played to skeptical but generally positive reviews.  Those who have seen it or even seen just the trailer and clips which have hit the internet know that the film is of high quality and will raise the discussion of authorship to the next level.  It won't change any mind...

Actor and author Hank Whittemore reported on his Facebook page that Roland Emmerich will appear along with Contested Will author James Shapiro after a September 30 preview of Emmerich's film, Anonymous. From the New Yorker Festival site: FRIDAY NIGHT SNEAK PREVIEW Sept. 30. 2011 at New Yorker Film Festival “Anonymous ” A special screening of “Anonymous,” inspired by the theory that the works of Shakespeare were written by the Earl of Oxford. After the screening,  Larissa MacFarquhar  will talk with the film’s director,  Roland Emmerich , and the Shakespeare scholar  James Shapiro . Buy Tickets 6 P.M.  Directors Guild Theatre 110 West 57th Street ($35) Read more  http://www.newyorker.com/festival/schedule/friday#ixzz1Y1f3p293

Roland Emmerich’s film,    Anonymous , about the Shakespeare authorship controversy is due out October 28. The film trailer sprawls across the Internet and movie screens, and enormous posters scream “Was Shakespeare a fraud?” in theater lobbies all over the country. On June 6,  Emmerich debated Shakespeare Birthplace Trust director Stanley Wells  in London – challenging Wells’ traditional ascription of the Bard’s literary creation to a man from of Stratford-upon-Avon. Following hard on the heels of James Shapiro’s defense of the status quo,  Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare? -- published last year by Scribner -- Emmerich’s star-scattered, CGI-enhanced, scandal-ridden view of the Elizabethan court promises to ruffle the inky feathers of traditionalists who cannot let go of a discredited icon. If this all sounds too intriguing to ignore, but you need a tour-director to guide you through labyrinthine halls filled with Stratfordian and anti-Stratf...

Tickets go on sale October 10, 2011 for the Royal Shakespeare Company's World Shakespeare Festival to be held April 23 to September 9, 2012 as part of England's Cultural Olympiad.  In a BBC News article dated September 6, "London 2012: Shakespeare Festival leads cultural events"   reporter Helen Busby wrote: Thousands of worldwide performers, both amateur and professional, are involved in the festival. Shows, including those specially commissioned, will take place both in London and across the UK. The RSC has collaborated in the UK with venues including the Globe, the Almeida Theatre, the Barbican, the British Museum, National Theatre, National Theatre Wales, the Roundhouse and Sage Gateshead. Some of the productions will also be online. The Globe, on the banks of the London's River Thames, has already announced that it will present all of Shakespeare's plays, staging one production itself with the remaining 36 plays each performed in a different languag...

Oxford and the queen from Roland Emmerich's Anonymous Mark Anderson, author of "Shakespeare" by Another Name , reported today on his ShakesVere Facebook page that media notice of Roland Emmerich's Anonymous (Was Shakespeare a Fraud?) is heating up with the film's debut at the Toronto International Film Festival this week. Like Oberon's Richard Joyrich in yesterday's review here, film critic Bill Goodykoontz touted Anonymous  as one of ten potential Oscar candidates at the Toronto International Film Festival this week. "And if you want to get a jump on the Oscars race, obviously that's an option. Here are 10 movies that seem to have a pretty good chance at securing Oscar nominations in major categories," Goodykoontz said at AZ Central and other media outlets Wednesday. "Anonymous -- 'Who really wrote Shakespeare's plays?' is a popular parlor-game question for English majors from way back (I know, as I was one, and ...

Yes it has finally happened! The movie Anonymous has had its World Premiere on Wednesday, September 7 during the 15th Annual Shakespeare Authorship Studies Conference at Concordia University in Portland, Oregon. (Actually the "official" premiere will be next Sunday at the Toronto Film Festival). I was very happy to be able to represent the Oberon Group at this auspicious occasion. Over 200 people (some of them Conference Registrants and others Concordia students or having other associations with the University) packed the Auditorium at the Portland Art Museum. There was an introduction of the film by the director, Roland Emmerich (yes, he was there in person) and then the movie began in front of a hushed, but excited crowd. I will say that the movie is quite fantastic. The acting and cinematography are among the best I've seen. Can you say "Oscar material"? I can. As we have been led to believe from prior rumors and the movie trailer (som...

Sailors in the Shakespeare authorship sloop are an independent crew used to charting their own course, but even among this notoriously self-confident coterie, James Warren astounds us with his initiative. The Sacramento native has lived overseas for the past 20 years, most recently in Pakistan and Vietnam, serving as a Foreign Service Officer with the U.S. Department of State. When he became interested in the Shakespeare authorship mystery, he created a tool that he needed for his research.  Warren explains: I became aware of the authorship issue about five years ago, and since then focused on acquiring and reading many books on it and Edward de Vere. I hadn’t paid much attention to the (Shakespeare Oxford Society and Shakespeare Fellowship websites. . . . However, after joining the SOS and SF earlier this year, in March I learned about the SOS newsletter, SF’s Shakespeare Matters , The Oxfordian, Brief Chronicles   and other publications all at the same time, ...

E-MAIL REPLY TO Rev Dr Paul Edmondson, Head of Research and Knowledge, The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust with regard to Rev Dr Edmondson's welcome message to the Trust's Shakespeare Authorship Conspiracy Theory blog Rev. Dr. Paul Edmondson Head of Research and Knowledge The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust Dear Rev. Dr. Edmondson, I despaired of hearing back from you since it has been some time, so you might imagine how welcome your message was to me when I saw it in my in-box. I, too, look forward to working with those participating in this project by the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust and congratulate the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust for taking this giant step forward with regard to the authorship issue. I am especially gratified to hear from the Head of Research and Knowledge of your organization since my own research has demonstrated that we are just beginning to discover Shakespeare's true genius and that further research is sure to demonstrate how much more p...

The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust response to Roland Emmerich's film about the Shakespeare authorship question, Anonymous , debuted today at "60 Minutes with Shakespeare"  where 60 questions about the Shakespeare authorship controversy are answered in one minute soundbites by 59 Stratfordians and one by Roland Emmerich. The answers may be viewed as video, or read in manuscript. Here is Victoria Buckley's denigration of Concordia and Brunel for daring to legitimize inquiry into the authorship question. Question 53: Degrees are awarded to those doubting Shakespeare’s authorship at Brunel and Concordia universities. What is the intellectual justification for this? Concordia University’s Shakespeare authorship research centre regards traditional Shakespeare scholarship as  ‘an industry in denial’  and  invites  enthusiastic  amateurs  to,  Horatio-like, assist in the process of ‘reporting the cause aright’ .For $12...