Shakespeare Fellowship President Earl Showerman spoke as a guest on the Patt Morrison Show airing on NPR’s southern California affiliate KPCC/KUOR yesterday. Showerman debated Professor Author Horowitz on the opening day of Roland Emmerich’s Shakespeare authorship film, Anonymous. The show opener said:
The film ‘Anonymous’, which opens in theaters today, presents a version of history that William Shakespeare was a fraud and that the works attributed to him were actually written by the Elizabethan aristocrat Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford. Patt fact-checks the film with a Shakespearean scholar and gets an update on the debate over Shakespeare’s authorship — a debate that’s roiled actors like Jeremy Irons but still managed to catch the attention of great minds like Supreme Court Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Antonin Scalia.
Showerman reported on the experience:
It was my privilege to debate Claremont College Theatre Arts Professor Arthur Horowitz over the authorship question on the Patt Morrison show on KPCC, the NPR affiliate in Southern California. The program was broadcast on the day Anonymous opened nationwide. Patt clearly had done her research and brought up the point that highly respected actors were now questioning the Shakespeare attribution. In a follow-up email, I invited the professor to attend my presentation of Hamlet, Macbeth and the Oresteia next month at the LA Shakespeare Authorship Roundtable. Anonymous will no doubt create more opportunities for us to engage the public and a reluctant academic community. My hope is that a respectful discourse may be established between open minded parties as a result of Roland Emmerich’s film and his praiseworthy commitment to our cause.
Listen to a 20-minute podcast at http://media.scpr.org/audio/upload/2011/10/28/Shakespeare.mp3
Patt Morrison also interviewed Los Angeles entertainment lawyer, and Players author Bert Fields in a Oct. 29. 2011 Los Angeles Times editorial “A look into who wrote Shakespeare’s works”.
