Oberon Shakespeare Study Group

Tom Townsend in Seattle, WA Tom and Joy Townsend are settling into their new life in Seattle. They plan to close on a home in the upper Queen Anne area on July 2, and they had lunch with several members of the Seattle Shakespeare Oxford Society yesterday. Tom said: The SSOS is made up of great, smart, well-read people (just like Oberon!). Joy and I enjoyed speaking with each of them.  . . . Meetings for the rest of the year have been planned. There is a lot of Shakespeare performed (I’m told) here in Seattle. Some were discussing having meetings just before or after these performances. Even the weather has been welcoming! Tom reported: Since we’ve been here the temps have been in the mid 60s to low 70s since we arrived on   May 15 . There has been scant rain!  We continue to miss everyone from the Oberon group and wish everyone the best. It's good to hear from our good friends and good to know they are enjoying their adventure in the northwest. Internatio...

by Linda Theil Oberon Chair Richard Joyrich, MD Oberon Chair Richard Joyrich, MD, is a Lead Donor to the new Shakespeare Oxford Fellowship Research Grant Program announced June 10 by SOF President John Hamill. The SOF intends to make two to four cash grants to scholars and researchers for the purpose of developing new knowledge bearing on the Shakespeare authorship question.  Hamill said: . . . the (Research Grant) program will begin with $20,000 per year in award funds, half from our endowment and half from members and friends. The grants will be given to members, so please join if you have not already. We have also initiated a Lead Donors Program for those who donate $1,000 or more for this purpose. So far, we are pleased to announce that Ben August, Bonner and Jack Cutting, and Richard Joyrich are Lead Donors. Joyrich is a past-president of the former Shakespeare Oxford Society and he currently serves on the Shakespeare Oxford Fellowship board of trustees. Joyrich said...

Trailer for Jim Jarmusch's new film, "Only Lovers Left Alive" by Linda Theil I went to see Jim Jarmusch’s “Only Lovers Left Alive” last week at the Michigan Theater in Ann Arbor, where the film was showing in a limited USA release. Our readers may recall that Oberon reported on this film almost exactly a year ago when Jarmusch screened “Only Lovers . . .” at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival. In an interview in Cannes, Jarmusch and actor John Hurt -- who plays Christopher Marlowe in the film – expressed anti-Stratfordian views on the Shakespeare authorship question. For a video of this interview, see "Director Jim Jarmusch and actor John Hurt proclaim anti-Stratfordian views at Cannes Film Festival" dated May 30, 2013. Jarmusch's film depicts Kit Marlowe as the true author of the Shakespeare canon, and the topic is not a sideline, as I had imagined from preliminary discussion, but is a key point of the film. In one of the film's few extended dia...

Hamlet by Lord Ronald Gower (1845-1916) at Stratford-upon-Avon.  Photograph by Robert Freidus courtesy of Victorian Web . by Linda Theil Neue Shake-speareGesellschaft  (New Shakespeare Society) board member Hanno Wember reports from Hamburg, Germany that an article in the Travel section of the large circulation daily newspaper the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung   took a non-Stratfordian look at the spurious claims of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust at Stratford-upon-Avon. The article titled " Das Ratsel des Getreindehandlers Will Shakspere" ("The mystery of the grain dealer Will Shakespeare") by Roland D. Gerste was published April 25, 2014. Wember said, "FAZ was strictly Stratfordian in recent years. Now this!" The long, illustrated article criticizes the inauthentic aspects of the Shakespeare birthplace exhibits and discusses the fervor of the Stratfordian point-of-view (translation by Hanno Wember): One does not have to be a supporter of...

Tom and Joy Townsend Oberons said goodbye last night to our great friends Tom and Joy Townsend who depart May 9 for Seattle, Washington. Tom has served as treasurer of Oberon since its very first meeting in 1999 until he relinquished his treasury duties to serve as co-chair and chair of Oberon for the past two years. Tom's charm and intelligence have been mainstays of our Michigan band and we will miss him and Joy more than we can say. But they have already been welcomed by the Seattle Oxfordian contingent, and Tom is scheduled to present a paper at the Seattle Shakespeare Oxford Society . Words cannot express our deepest wishes for their very great happiness in their new home. We all celebrated Shakespeare's 450th UN-birthday together with a delicious UN-birthday cake! Shakespeare's UN-birthday cake! Celebrating Shakespeare's 450th UN-birthday April 28, 2014 at the Bloomfield Twp. Library:  Rosey Hunter, Rey Perez, John Rumierz, Richard Joyrich, To...

by Richard Joyrich Day Three (Saturday, April 12): The day began at 9 AM with Roger Stritmatter on Small Latin and Less Greek: Anatomy of a Misquotation . Roger discussed his take on how the First Folio came to be published. In this, he follows generally what Peter Dickson and others have been saying about the Spanish Marriage Crises of 1622-23 when there was an intention on the part of James I to marry his son Charles to the Spanish Infanta Maria Anna (daughter of the king). This proposed match to a Catholic was opposed by the powerful Protestant nobility, among which were the two "Incomparable Brethren", William and Philip Herbert, to whom the First Folio was dedicated. It seems clear that the publication of the First Folio at this time was, in some way, a political statement by this court faction.  It was also at this time that there was the big push to substitute William of Stratford as the author of the plays. Ben Jonson was hired to help in this endeavor. R...

by Richard Joyrich Day (Night) One (Thursday, April 10, 2014): This is your intrepid reporter on the spot at Concordia College in Portland, Oregon for the 18th Annual Richard Paul & Jane Roe Shakespeare Authorship Research Center Spring Conference. Actually, that's a bit of a misnomer, since for the past few years the conference was called the Shakespeare Authorship Conference and before that it was called the Edward de Vere Studies Conference. Anyway, I guess it's the 18th year that there was SOME kind of conference at Concordia University here in Portland. As you probably all know, Professor Daniel Wright, who started the conference, is no longer at Concordia, but Dean David Kluth and Earl Showerman were able to put together a program to keep the Conference going.  There were quite a few changes that I noticed. There is a new style of nametag, there is a new poster and logo (with the loss of the previous Oxford portrait that we used to see) and there ...