A bumpkin known as "Will Shakspere" 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.
The Beard of Avon premiered at South Coast Repertory Theatre in Costa Mesa, CA in November of 2001 under the direction of David Emmes.