The winners of the 2020 “Who Wrote Shakespeare?” Video Contest were announced during the recent online Shakespeare Authorship Symposium. The first-prize winner, with a cash award of $1,000, was Greg Buse, who wrote and stars in the hilarious “Earl of Oxford’s March … Remixed!” — recounting in rap style the highlights of the life of Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford and likely true author of the works of “Shakespeare.”
The $500 second-place prize, for the second year in a row, went to Jonathan David Dixon for “Interview with a Stratfordian.” His runner-up video in 2019 was “The Brave Little Shakespeare.”
The third-place winner, earning $250, was Jonathon “Jono” Freeman for “The Mulberry Tree.” The SOF thanks and congratulates all the contestants, finalists, and winners for their hard work and creativity.
Jono Freeman is from Australia. Last year’s first-prize winner, Rosemary O’Loughlin, is from Ireland. The video contest was originally limited to U.S. residents but is now open to residents of Canada (including Québec), the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, France, Germany, and Denmark.
The screening of the video contest winners has been a popular feature of SOF annual conferences since 2017. Check out here all the finalists and winners in the four contests to date. The mission of the contest is to explore evidence of reasonable doubts and promote discussion about the Shakespeare authorship question.
The 2020 online symposium replaced the regular fall conference due to the coronavirus pandemic. SOF Trustee and Video Contest Committee Chair Julie Sandys Bianchi announced the video contest results on October 3 directly from her kitchen in Nashville. Her humorous 12-minute report screened all three prize winners and began with a tribute to the late Tom Regnier, the key architect of the video contest, which has become one of the most successful outreach projects in SOF history. Winning videos are chosen by online public voting from a field of finalists selected by the committee. The SOF follows strict security protocols to prevent anyone from voting more than once for the same video and to safeguard the overall integrity of the voting process.
