A bumpkin known as "Will Shakespeare" who longs to be an artist flees from his filthy barn, his homebound wife and her incessant chores. In Elizabethan London, did this stagestruck dreamer become a front man for Sir Francis Bacon, the Earl of Oxford and even Queen Elizabeth, authors too proud to admit they scribbled plays for the unwashed masses? This delicious and witty farce fashions the longstanding debate over who really penned the Bard's cannon into a merry look at the mortality of artists and the immortality of their legacy. With a gleeful wink at intervening centuries, the author portrays Will's comic struggles to become an artist in his own right while she reflects on artistic inspiration, the struggle to become an artistic master and the very meaning of creativity.

"[A] sparkling academic comedy...Highbrow art served up as lowgrade fun." - Variety

"You don't have to be a Shakespeare aficionado to appreciate [this] satisfying...shrewd and ambitious [play]...Big ideas...are delivered with a genuine awe and delight at the genius in [Shakespeare's] 37 plays, whoever is responsible." - The New York Times