Oberon Shakespeare Study Group

Posted by Richard Joyrich As many of you already know, the two leading Oxfordian groups in the United States, the Shakespeare Oxford Society and the Shakespeare Fellowship, are making plans to unify into a single organization. This unification is long overdue, in my opinion. Both organizations have the same basic goals and mission and there has been a lot of inefficiency and extra expense in maintaining separate organizations. Both groups have already shown that working together has many benefits. Witness the past seven Joint Authorship Conferences (and the upcoming eighth one to be held next month in Toronto) as well as the recently concluded High School Essay Contest. The Boards of Trustees of both organizations have been working tirelessly to come up with a plan to unify the two groups in a way that preserves the "best of both". A Plan of Unification and a completely new set of bylaws for the new organization have been drawn up. As I write this, both of ...

Shakespeare Fellowship President Earl Showerman reported on the 2011 Shakespeare Fellowship/Shakespeare Oxford Society Joint Conference to be held Oct. 13-16, 2011 at the Washington Court Hotel in Washington, DC. From Showerman's report it looks like Michigan will have quite a contingent at the conference. In addition to SOS President Richard Joyrich and SOS board member Susan Grimes Width who plan to attend, Oberon Chair Tom Hunter and Oberon Treasurer Tom Townsend have indicated they will submit proposals as well as well-known Michigan authorship researcher, Barbara Burris.  Showerman said: The program committee for the 2011 joint authorship conference in Washington, DC is still accepting paper proposals. The newly-minted conference registration forms for the Shakespeare Fellowship and Shakespeare Oxford Society are attached (below). The conference will take place October 13-16 at the Washington Court Hotel and a block of rooms have been set aside at a discounted rate. Hotel con...

Shakespeare Fellowship President Earl Showerman asked us to share this request for papers for the Shakespeare Fellowship/Shakespeare Oxford Society conference to be held Oct. 13-16, 2011 at the Washington Court Hotel in Washington, D.C. Deadline for proposals is Aug. 1, 2011. The 2011  joint authorship conference  sponsored by  the Shakespeare Oxford Society and the Shakespeare Fellowship will be held in Washington DC from  October 13-16, 2011. Arrangements for a block of rooms at the Washington Court  Hotel  are being finalized. The program will include a tour of the Folger Shakespeare  Library  with a viewing and discussion of the Earl of Oxford's Geneva Bible.  The SOS and SF are organizations dedicated to academic excellence, as  defined through the independent scholarship of several generations of  scholars, among them J.T. Looney, B.R. and B.M. Ward, Charles Wisner  Barrell, Charlton Ogburn, Jr., Ruth Loyd Miller, a...

Oberon founder and Shakespeare Oxford Society Vice President Richard Joyrich, M.D. was elected by the SOS board to serve as president of the organization at the joint Shakespeare Fellowship/Shakespeare Oxford Society  annual conference in Ashland, Oregon this weekend. Superlative in every way, Joyrich is a brilliant choice. Congratulations, Richard!

Several Oberon members are heading west this week to attend and present at the annual Shakespeare Fellowship/Shakespeare Oxford Society conference in Ashland, Oregon. The conference was heralded in the local press with an article by reviewer Bill Varble that appeared today in the Ashland Daily Tidings and the Mail Tribune.   Varble said: On a day in mid May of 1575, a powerful 25-year-old English nobleman named Edward de Vere landed in Venice in northern Italy. One of the foremost cultural and mercantile cities in the world, Venice would be the young man's base for almost a year and a half of travels, after which he would return to England, where, according to some, he spent the rest of his years producing the works of Shakespeare. Read the entire article, "Who wrote Shakespeare? "  at: http://www.dailytidings.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100914/NEWS02/9140309 09/22/10 NOTE: A syllabus of the SF/SOS 2010 conference in Ashland, Oregon is available at http://www.sh...

Shakespeare Fellowship President Earl Showerman sent this report on the annual joint conference of the Shakespeare Fellowship and the Shakespeare Authorship Society. Register online at SF/SOS Annual Conference — Sept. 16-19, 2010 in Ashland, Oregon  online registration site  . For more information about conference accommodations, see Ashland SF/SOS Conference Registration on the SOS News Online site. The Ashland Authorship Conference September 16–19, 2010 Ashland Springs Hotel by Earl Showerman The program for sixth annual joint conference of the Shakespeare Fellowship and the Shakespeare Oxford Society in Ashland, Oregon features over 30 scholarly presentations and dramatic performances. This season is the 75 th anniversary of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and the conference will be addressed by both Artistic Director, Bill Rauch, and Executive Director, Paul Nicholson.  The education program features presentations directed toward the plays in production including...

Dear Oberon, There in my mailbox today was our own Linda Theil's second SOS Newsletter . What a treat!  Impressive indeed. Thick, full pages crammed full with great information and analysis about the authorship issue. Linda is quickly establishing a reputation of quality as the newsletter's new editor It is worth the annual membership fee to receive this wonderful publication. If you are not yet a member of the Shakespeare Oxford Society , please consider joining now . The newsletter will be yours, and you will be part of an organization with a proud history of research and discovery which will some day lead us to world wide recognition of the true author.  Tom Your Chairman

Dear Oberon, Looking ahead, our next Oberon meeting will be Thursday, June 18, at the Farmington Library; room opens 6:45 p.m. We are most pleased to announce that, courtesy of the Adult Learning Institute, Oberon will be making a donation to the Michigan Shakespeare Festival this year.    I will be presenting “The Real Shakespeare” to ALI at their meeting on October 1, featuring Ron Destro’s “Who Really Wrote as Shake-speare,” which we ran at the UNbirthday party in April to good reviews. Looking back, we covered a lot of territory at our May meeting.    It was good to welcome from the ALI new Oberon member Del M. Final plans have been made for this year’s Oberon Up North, which will take place at or around Torch Lake at the end of June and will include an afternoon at Interlochen, a performance of  The Taming of the Shrew  at Interlochen’s Shakespeare Festival, and a surprise junket into Michigan’s literary history. This year’s participants wi...

It gives me great pleasure to be able to announce the appointment of our own Linda Theil as the new editor of the Shakespeare Oxford Society Newsletter. As followers of this blog will undoubtably know the SOS is one of two national organizations dedicated to researching the authorship question and Linda's appointment is certainly a feather in her cap (and it doesn't reflect on our own Oberon group too badly either). For the past few years, the SOS newsletter has been very well edited by Lew Tate, but all good things must come to an end sometime. I know that Linda will certainly be able to fulfil the duties of editor in an equally (if not better) fashion. She has many ideas for improving the newsletter, including having a more electronic (web-based) presence. Please join me in welcoming Linda to this new venture! Well done!

Mark Anderson and John Plummer, Oct. 11 at the Crowne Plaza hotel in White Plains, NY. Shakespeare by Another Name author Mark Anderson announced Saturday that director/writer John Plummer of the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival has optioned his book. Plummer plans to write a series of scripts based on Oxford's life as revealed in Shakespeare by Another Name to offer networks like PBS and HBO. "Our agents are excited," Plummer said at the joint annual Shakespeare Oxford Society/Shakespeare Fellowship conference in White Plains, NY. "This guy's life (Edward deVere, 17th Earl of Oxford) is the entire Shakespeare canon and it's all true. It's the sexiest story, and it sells itself." For a glimpse of the interaction between Anderson and Plummer, check out this recent entry on Anderson's blog.

I am pleased to announce the appointment of Susan Grimes Width to the Board of Trustees of the Shakespeare Oxford Society following the resignation of Elliot Stone. Sue will be serving as Treasurer for the SOS. Sue comes to the SOS Board with a background of being a CPA and a former member of the Michigan House of Representatives. She currently is serving as a Michigan Tax Tribunal Judge. Those of you who attended the 2006 Annual Joint Conference of the Shakespeare Oxford Society and the Shakespeare Fellowship in November, 2006 will know of the invaluable contributions of Sue in making that Conference so widely acclaimed. With two members now on the Board of the SOS, Oberon is poised to continue our goal of promoting interest in the Authorship Question. Congratulations, Sue!