Comedy-Thriller Stage-Version of Ted Bacino's "The Shakespeare Conspiracy" Opens Attesting the Bard was a Fraud

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Feb 18, 2014, 08:30 ET

PALM SPRINGS, Calif., Feb. 18, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Shakespeare was a fraud, according to the novel "The Shakespeare Conspiracy" by Ted Bacino.

(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20140218/PH66584-a )

"Shakespeare Conspiracy" open in Rockford, Illinois, March 14.(PRNewsFoto/Ted Bacino) (PRNewsFoto/TED BACINO)

The stage version of "The Shakespeare Conspiracy" is based on the novel by Ted Bacino. (PRNewsFoto/Ted Bacino) (PRNewsFoto/TED BACINO)

(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20140218/PH66584-b )

And now, the comedy-thriller stage version of the book opens next month in Illinois at Artists' Ensemble Theater, the professional theater in residence at Rockford University. The play, written by Bacino and Rufus Cadigan, had its premiere production last year in Ohio at the Columbus Center for the Performing Arts.

The plot of the novel and play portrays the centuries-old conspiracy theory that the actor Shakespeare was not the writer of works credited to Shakespeare.

"The Shakespeare Conspiracy" portrays how Christopher Marlowe, England's most celebrated playwright at the time, was ordered to appear before the Privy Council on charges of treason in 1593. The penalty for treason: death.

However, according to history, just days before the trial, Marlowe was conveniently "murdered" by friends over the "reckoning" of the dinner bill in a small pub outside London. The murderers then "unceremoniously buried" England's foremost writer in an unmarked grave – which has never been located to this day.

Almost immediately, an unknown actor named Shakespeare, who was best known for "holding horses for the gentry while they watched plays," began turning out magnificent dramas, sonnets and poems.

The conspiracy theory is that Marlowe faked his own death and continued to write while in hiding, using Shakespeare as a front.

In the play Inspector Maunder soon suspects the truth and begins matching wits with Marlowe's patron and lover, Sir Thomas Walsingham – one cleverly hiding the facts and other cunningly discovering the truth.

The novel, a wild romp through 16^th Century Elizabethan England, is a rapidly unfolding detective novel filled with comedy, intrigue, murder and a gay love story.

The claim that Shakespeare was a fraud has always had powerful supporters, like Sigmund Freud, Mark Twain, many U.S. Supreme Court members, and some of the greatest Shakespearean actors of the day -- including Tony-winner Mark Rylance, the former head of London's Globe Theatre.

There are a multitude of reasons why historians have believed for years that Shakespeare, the actor, could not have written these works.

He did not have the education, travel experiences, or background for the information used in his writings.
He obviously did not own any of the more than 200 books from which material was used for his plays. On his death, his will divided every inexpensive item he owned but listed no books. Books were precious at that time and would certainly be willed to someone.
Plays supposedly written by Shakespeare continued to appear for years after the actor died.

The upcoming production at Rockford University, directed by Richard Raether, will be present March 14-30.

The play, "The Shakespeare Conspiracy," billed as "The greatest literary deception of all time," is represented by the Earl Graham Theatrical Agency in New York.

The web site for the novel is: www.TheShakespeareConspiracy.com