Press release from Monday April 19, 2010
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.
Claremont, California, April 19, 2010 — The Shakespeare Authorship Coalition announced today that another eighty-nine people have signed its Declaration of Reasonable Doubt About the Identity of William Shakespeare since its last update five months ago in November, 2009. Of these, 25 have advanced degrees, including 13 doctorates and 12 master's degrees. Seventeen are current or former college/university faculty members, including Ekkehart Krippendorff, Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the Free University of Berlin, who has just been added to the SAC's separate list of "notable" signatories. Although his main field is political science, Professor Krippendorff has also studied, written and lectured about Shakespeare.
A total of 1,747 people have signed the Declaration. Of these, 1,376 are college graduates, and 620 have advanced degrees – 261 doctoral degrees and 359 master’s degrees. A total of 312 are current or former college or university faculty members. Of these, the largest number were in English literature (66, 21%), followed by those in theatre arts (35), the arts (26), natural sciences (25), math, engineering and computers (22), other humanities (20), medicine and health care (19), social sciences (18), education (17), history (14), management (14), law (12), psychology (10), and library science (6). With the addition of Professor Krippendorff, twenty names, or about 1.1%, appear on the separate list of notable signatories on the SAC website.
“I find it interesting that the largest category of Declaration signatories, among both college graduates and faculty members, is those who said their field is 'English literature.'” said SAC Chairman John Shahan. “If Declaration signatories provide a valid indication, Shakespeare authorship doubters clearly tend to be much better educated than the general population,” he said. “That's not terribly surprising, since it seems to be mostly the well-educated who take an interest in Shakespeare these days; but I wouldn't have predicted that so many, and such a high proportion of signatories, would be English literature graduates. I'm not sure what it means,” he said, “but it's interesting that so many people with literature backgrounds would be doubters.”
The Declaration is neutral about the true identity of the author. Rather than seeking to resolve the long-standing controversy outright, it aims to legitimize the issue by calling attention to the many reasons for doubt about the Stratford man's authorship.
The SAC is a private, non-profit charity founded to advocate for recognition of the legitimacy of the authorship controversy. The Declaration of Reasonable Doubt can be read and signed online at the website of the SAC at: www.doubtaboutwill.org.
SAC contact person: John Shahan at (909) 896-2006, or online.