Press release from Monday April 13, 2009

SAC News Releases

February 15, 2018
University of London now offers free online Shakespeare authorship course
December 9, 2016
SAC News: What we've accomplished; what's next after the 400th anniversary?
November 22, 2016
Droeshout engraving in First Folio has Shakspere wearing impossible doublet!
May 4, 2016
Doubts about Shakespeare go international for the 400th anniversary
April 25, 2016
Sir Derek Jacobi and Mark Rylance revive the debate over Shakespeare's identity in an interview with NPR's Renée Montagne.
April 24, 2016
Doubters claim victory on Shakespeare 400th Anniversary, and renew their challenge to Stratfordians to participate in a mock trial.
March 23, 2016
The SAC at Age 10; Six New Notables; 400th Anniversary International Events
December 27, 2015
Declaration of Reasonable Doubt still un-rebutted after more than eight years
November 22, 2015
Droeshout engraving in First Folio has Shakspere wearing impossible doublet!
May 31, 2015
RSC removes Stanley Wells' article on “Authorship Debate” from its website!
September 28, 2014
SAC Update through September, 2014
December 6, 2013
SAC challenges the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust to a mock trial, to prove that Shakspere wrote Shakespeare, offering a £40K donation to the winning side.'
November 21, 2011
Actor Michael York and Shakespeare Authorship Coalition challenge the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust in Stratford-upon-Avon with new reasons to doubt the identity of the author William Shakespeare in the wake of Sony Pictures’ heretical film, Anonymous.
April 30, 2011
Over 2,000 sign Declaration of Reasonable Doubt
September 18, 2010
Theater professionals sign Shakespeare Authorship Declaration
April 20, 2010
Happy Birthday and Retirement, Justice John Paul Stevens!
April 19, 2010
Shakespeare Authorship Coalition updates Declaration signatory lists
November 15, 2009
U.S. Supreme Court Justices John Paul Stevens and Sandra Day O'Connor (retired) sign the Declaration of Reasonable Doubt.
April 13, 2009
Award-winning Shakespearean actors Sir Derek Jacobi and Mark Rylance joined by growing list of declared Shakespeare authorship doubters. Michael York joins fellow actors as SAC Patron. Shakespeare Authorship Coalition marks 2nd aniversary of Declaration of Reasonable Doubt. Seven signatories added to SAC “notables” list.
November 17, 2008
Huntington Library staff sign Declaration.
June 3, 2008
Sir Derek Jacobi joins the Shakespeare Authorship Coalition as a SAC patron.
December 1, 2007
First annual report of the Shakespeare authorship coalition: the Coalition’s strategy is working! Over 1,200 people have signed the Declaration of Reasonable Doubt, and we’ve attracted enormous attention to the authorship issue. With each new signatory, it becomes more difficult for orthodox scholars to continue claiming that there is “no room for doubt” about the identity of William Shakespeare.
September 23, 2007
Nearly 800 additional signatories have signed the “Declaration of Reasonable Doubt About the Identity of William Shakespeare” in the two weeks since prominent Shakespearean actors Sir Derek Jacobi and Mark Rylance, former artistic director at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in London, gave the Declaration its launch in the U.K.
July 2, 2007
SAC adds 100 signers to the list of signatories of the “Declaration of Reasonable Doubt”.
April 23, 2007
SAC releases its first list of signatories of the “Declaration of Reasonable Doubt”, on the 391st anniversary of William Shakspere's death.
April 14, 2007
SAC and the Shakespeare Authorship Roundtable hold a signing ceremony to issue the “Declaration of Reasonable Doubt”
April 11, 2007
SAC and Shakespeare Authorship Roundtable to issue historic “Declaration of Reasonable Doubt”

SAC contact person: John Shahan at (909) 896-2006, or online.

— Internationally-renowned Shakespearean actors Sir Derek Jacobi, winner of this year's Olivier Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of Malvolio in Twelfth Night, and Mark Rylance, winner of the 2008 Tony Award for Best Actor for his leading role in Boeing-Boeing, are being joined by a growing list of actors, academics and others who openly express doubt about the identity of the author of Shakespeare's works.

Both actors are patrons of the Shakespeare Authorship Coalition (SAC), which advocates for recognition of the legitimacy of the authorship issue in academia. SAC Chairman John Shahan congratulated Rylance and Jacobi for taking the top acting honors on both sides of the Atlantic. “We've always had the best arguments on our side,” he said, “and now we have the best actors!”

Tuesday, April 14, is the second anniversary of the launch of the SAC's Declaration of Reasonable Doubt About the Identity of William Shakespeare. On that day in 2007, Declaration signing ceremonies were held at both Concordia University in Portland, Oregon, and UCLA's Geffen Playhouse.

Five months later, on September 8, 2007, Rylance and Jacobi teamed up to promulgate the Declaration in the U.K., with a signing ceremony in Chichester, West Sussex, following a performance of Rylance's play about the authorship question, “I Am Shakespeare.” The event attracted worldwide media attention.

So far, 1,471 people have signed the Declaration, including 263 college or university faculty members. Of the total, 214 have doctorates, and 310 master's degrees. Among faculty members, the largest category is those in English literature (57). But doubts about the authorship have spread across all academic departments. Portland's Concordia University, and Brunel University in West London, offer master's degree programs in Shakespeare Authorship Studies.

Shahan took the occasion to announce that actor Michael York has joined his two fellow actors as a SAC patron. York has long argued that the authorship question is legitimate. He was a featured speaker at a reception at the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles in 1994, when the Shakespeare Association of America and World Shakespeare Congress met there. Shahan said it was his first event as an authorship doubter, and he found York's enthusiasm for the issue inspiring. He said he hopes being a SAC patron portends good things for his career, too!

Shahan also announced the addition of seven people to the list of “notable” signatories on the SAC website. He said it's always difficult to decide whom to put on the notables list because the SAC has so many distinguished signatories. “We have set the bar high, in keeping with the quality of the twenty past doubters named in the Declaration itself,” he said. That list includes Mark Twain, Walt Whitman, Ralph Waldo Emmerson, Charles Dickens, John Galsworthy, Orson Welles, Sir John Gielgud, Sigmund Freud and two U.S. Supreme Court Justices.

The seven, with their signing statements, are as follows:

Alan K. Austin

Producer of the documentary, The Shakespeare Mystery, Frontline (PBS). Author of novels The Adagio, and (due in 2010) A Walking Shadow, involving Edward DeVere.

Barry R. Clarke, M.Sc.

Daily Telegraph puzzlist; author, Challenging Logic Puzzles Mensa (Sterling: 2003), and The Shakespeare Puzzle (Lulu: 2008), which argues for Francis Bacon

Dr. Keir C. Cutler, Ph.D.

Actor, playwright; doctorate in theatre; adapted Mark Twain's Is Shakespeare Dead? Performed it across Canada, and it was televised nationally.

Mr. Gareth L. Howell, J.D.

President, World Affairs Council, Greater Cincinnati, formerly Director of Programs, United Nations International Training Center, Torino, Italy

Dr. Mark Andrew Morris, Ph.D.

Visiting Scholar-in-Residence, Faculty of Arts, University of Alberta. As Canada's most-performed librettist, I cannot believe the Stratford man was the author.

Prof. Michael D. Rubbo, M.A.

Director, Much Ado About Something, the award-winning documentary on Christopher Marlowe's authorship candidacy; co-winner, Hoffman prize

Prof. Jack M. Shuttleworth, Ph.D.

Professor of English, Emeritus, US Air Force Academy; long time Oxfordian; currently editing the Oxfordian edition of Hamlet

Shahan noted that Prof. Shuttleworth is also a retired US Air Force general, and a former Chairman of the English Department at the Air Force Academy — not a stereotypical doubter.

The SAC is a private, non-profit educational charity dedicated to legitimizing the authorship issue by increasing awareness of reasonable doubt about the identity of William Shakespeare. It was founded in 2006, for the purpose of legitimizing the authorship issue in academia by April 23, 2016, the 400th anniversary of the death of the traditional author, Mr. William "Shakspere" of Stratford-on-Avon. The SAC supports no alternative authorship candidate. The Declaration can be read and signed online.

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SAC contact person: John Shahan at (909) 896-2006, or online.