TORONTO, April 5, 2012 – A York University professor and his students are delving into Shakespeare’s true identity with a course and an upcoming conference devoted to this controversial topic.

“The Shakespeare authorship question is a matter of a faith, rather than fact. There are nearly no facts connecting [the man we know as Shakespeare] to the writing of plays,” says Don Rubin, professor in York’s Department of Theatre and organizer of the upcoming conference, "Shakespeare: The Authorship Question," on Saturday, April 7. The conference will take place at York’s Keele campus, in the Joseph G. Green Studio Theatre, 139 Centre for Film & Theatre, starting at 11am.

Over the past 150 years, prominent artists and intellectuals have argued that the Bard of Avon may not be who we’ve long thought. Those doubters have included Sigmund Freud, Mark Twain, Henry James, Orson Welles and, more recently, artists such as Mark Rylance, artistic director of the Globe Theatre, actor Jeremy Irons and Sir Derek Jacobi.

“There’s very strong reasonable doubt about the candidacy of William of Stratford,” says Rubin. “So then the question becomes, who did write [the plays]?”

Rubin was so curious that he began teaching a course on the topic, which was first offered this January. “I put together this course simply to look into the issue – rather than push a certain candidate,” he says. He tabled six likely suspects to his class of undergraduate theatre students, split them into groups, and had them argue the pros and cons for each.

While there are many possible candidates – among them the Earl of Oxford, and Italian-born lexicographer John Florio – Rubin leans towards the theory that the works have multiple authors. “During the Elizabethan period, collaboration was quite common and so this ‘group theory’ could fit. The Earl of Oxford, who is probably the front-runner in terms of the authorship question, may have been a major player in that group,” he says.

Rubin, founding director of the MA and PhD programs in Theatre Studies and series editor of Routledge’s six-volume World Encyclopedia of Contemporary Theatre, will deliver opening remarks at the conference. He is also president of the Canadian Theatre Critics Association.

The conference’s keynote speaker, Mark Anderson, author of the critically acclaimed volume Shakespeare By Another Name: The Life of Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford, the Man who was Shakespeare, has his own opinion on Shakespeare’s identity. Anderson will delve into the subject with his talk, “The Bard’s New Clothes: Shakespeare’s Autobiography and Why the Authorship Controversy Matters.”

In the afternoon, there will be a 90-minute debate with panellists Anderson, scholar and editor Lamberto Tassinari, York professor and Canada Research Chair Christopher Innes of the Department of English, David Prosser, communications director and former literary manager of the Stratford Festival, Michel Vais, editor of the Quebec theatre journal Jeu, and Montreal actor Keir Cutler. There will also be a Q&A session with the audience.

The event is sponsored by the York University Department of Theatre in association with York’s Faculty of Fine Arts, Winters College, Stong College, the Division of Humanities and the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies Research Fund.

For more information, contact drubin@yorku.ca.

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Media Contact:
Melissa Hughes, Media Relations, York University, 416-736-2100 ext. 22097, mehughes@yorku.ca