The Shakespeare Oxford Fellowship is sponsoring a summer seminar in Ashland, Oregon July 22 through 25, 2019 focused on three plays in production at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF), As You Like It, All’s Well that Ends Well, and Macbeth. Authors of recent Shakespeare authorship publications will also be featured. The seminar will take place in the beautiful Meese Room at Hannon Library on the campus of Southern Oregon University.
Tuition for the 2019 seminar is $150 for the three day program. Individual day registrations for $50/day are also available. The seminar will be preceded by a free-to-the-public presentation by SOF seminar faculty on Monday, July 22, in Carpenter Hall at the corner of S. Pioneer and Hargadine Streets. The Carpenter Hall forum will be followed by an opening reception for seminar participants at the home of Carole Sue Lipman, President of the Shakespeare Authorship Roundtable.
Daily sessions will convene at Hannon Library from 9:00 – 5:00 from Tuesday, July 23rd through Thursday, July 25th with lunches included at Omar’s Restaurant, a short walk from Hannon Library. See http://omarsrestaurant.com/ for luncheon menus. A special exhibit of 16th and 17th century folio editions from the Margery Bailey Collection will be on display during the seminar. Seminar registration is now available on the SOF website.
Coppin State University Professor Roger Stritmatter will serve as the lead seminar instructor. Other presenters will include Bonner Cutting, author of Necessary Mischief, Steven Sabel, Producing Artistic Director of the Archway Theatre Company, Law Professor Bryan Wildenthal, Shelly Maycock of Virginia Tech University, and Dr. Earl Showerman, who has been teaching on the Shakespeare authorship question for a decade at the Osher Lifelong Learning program at Southern Oregon University.
Registrants will be responsible for ordering their own theatre tickets for As You Like It (7/23), All’s Well that Ends Well (7/24) and Macbeth (7/25). Tickets may be ordered by calling the OSF Box Office at 800-219-8161 or online at: https://www.osfashland.org/en/tickets-and-calendar/ticket-pricing-and-policies.aspx
For seminar attendees who will require accommodations in Ashland, a variety of hotels and bed and breakfast establishments may be booked, but availability in July can be limited. The inn nearest to Hannon Library is the Flagship Inn where rooms may be reserved for around $100/night. Assistance in transfers to and from Hannon Library and OSF will be provided by the seminar organizers. Seminar registration is now available on the SOF website. For further information on the seminar, theatre tickets, accommodations, or other questions, contact Earl Showerman at earlees@charter.net.
Seminar Faculty
Roger Stritmatter, Ph.D., is a Professor of Humanities and Literature at Coppin State University. In 2009 he established Brief Chronicles: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Authorship Studies, serving as the general editor from 2009-2016. The 2015 third edition of the Index to Oxfordian Publications identifies 105 articles by him published between 1990 and 2014, many in orthodox academic journals including The Shakespeare Yearbook, Review of English Studies, Notes and Queries, and the Psychoanalytic Review. He is the author, with Lynne Kositsky, of On the Date, Sources and Design of Shakespeare’s The Tempest (McFarland 2013) and, with Alexander Waugh, A New Shakespeare Allusion Book: Literary allusions to Shakespeare, 1584-1786 from Historical Principles (2019).
Bryan H. Wildenthal is Professor of Law Emeritus, Thomas Jefferson School of Law in San Diego. He received his A.B. (with honors) and J.D. (with distinction) from Stanford University, where he was an editor on the Stanford Law Review. He has been a law professor since 1994. Bryan is the author of a law textbook, Native American Sovereignty on Trial (2003), and numerous articles in leading law reviews. He was elected in 2016 to the Shakespeare Oxford Fellowship Board of Trustees, and now serves as vice president of the SOF. His first book on the subject, Early Shakespeare Authorship Doubts, is forthcoming.
Steven Sabel is the producing artistic director of Archway Theatre Company, headquartered in Burbank, California. He was the founder of the Redlands Shakespeare Festival, and served as producing artistic director of that organization for nine successful seasons, before moving to the Los Angeles area. He has produced more than 57 full-scale Shakespearean productions in both classical and conceptualized styles, including 21 different titles in the Shakespearean canon.
Bonner Cutting holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Tulane University and a Master of Music in piano performance from McNeese State University. Her recent book, Necessary Mischief: Exploring the Shakespeare Authorship Question, is a collection of essays on a wide range of subjects that shed light on the authorship debate. Her work on the Last Will and Testament of Stratford’s Shakspere is published, along with her transcript of this will, in the Shakespeare Authorship Coalition’s book Shakespeare Beyond Doubt? Exposing an Industry in Denial.
Shelly Maycock has been teaching Composition and Professional Writing as an Instructor at Virginia Tech for the past decade. She has MA’s in English literature and creative writing from Virginia Tech and Hollins University. She developed authorship skepticism as an English major and grad student fascinated with Elizabethans but disenchanted with the traditional view of Shakespeare, and developed a strong interest in the Oxfordian position after teaching Hamlet.
Earl Showerman, MD graduated from Harvard College and the University of Michigan Medical School. Over the past 15 years he has presented a series of papers and published on the topics of Shakespeare’s debt to Greek drama and his remarkable medical acumen. He contributed the chapter on Shakespeare’s medical knowledge in Shakespeare Beyond Doubt? – Exposing an Industry in Denial as well as several topics in Know-It All-Shakespeare. He serves as a trustee of the Shakespeare Oxford Fellowship, and an Associate of the Shakespearean Authorship Trust of London.
