The Roundtable recently published its lecture series schedule for 2012-2013. As engaging and elucidating as last season was, the upcoming group of speakers is like our Olympic athletes: pushing the game forward, sometimes by miles, sometimes by a hundredth of a second.

Professor Jeffrey Kahan

Beginning on September 15, Professor Jeffrey Kahan examines Shakespeare and the Occult. Drawing from his forthcoming book on the subject (to be published by Palgrove), Kahan looks at Alfred Dodd’s and Percy Allen’s attempts to speak to the “spirits” of Francis Bacon and Edward DeVere, respectively. Professor Kahan has a Ph.D. from the Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham, England. He is the author of Reforming Shakespeare, The Cult of Kean and Bettymania and the Birth of Celebrity Culture, as well as several other books and numerous articles in scholarly journals. Kahan will inform, intrigue and entertain!

Louis Fantasia

Apropos of the fiery political season, Louis Fantasia – who speaks just four days after the U.S. Presidential Election – will address with his own iconic exuberance Shakespeare and Politics. Louis is an internationally  esteemed actor, director, Shakespearean scholar and teacher; not to mention longtime friend and member of SAR’s Board of Advisors. In Louis’ case, “topical” is an understatement.

Sylvia Crowley Holmes

Sylvia Crowley Holmes takes us back to the Italy of Shakespeare’s Othello. Sylvia comes from an authorship lineage of at least two generations. Her father, former Mayor of Pasadena, John Crowley and her mother, Barbara W. G. Crowley were friends of Ruth Lloyd Miller and helped found the Roundtable over twenty-five years ago. A superb artist, singer, student of all things Elizabethan and secretary of SAR, Sylvia has a rich, multi-faceted understanding of authorship issues, including the intriguing “Italian Question.” Recall with delight her live concert with Sally Mosher last season, and look forward to her eloquent thoughts in January.

Dr. Roger Stritmatter

Dr. Roger Stritmatter is at the vanguard of the movement to establish the Shakespeare authorship question as not just a respectable subject for the academy, but an essential one. As a student at the University of Massachusetts, Roger was the first Ph.D candidate allowed to complete a dissertation on authorship, focusing on Shakespeare and the Geneva Bible. Since then, Stritmatter has continued to publish brilliant original work on Shakespeare and the modern imagination, censorship and literature, authorship identification theory and the Bible as literature. He is also the general editor of Brief Chronicles, a peer reviewed journal of Shakespearean authorship studies. We eagerly anticipate Roger’s talk next June on Early Sources of the Tempest.

Members Only at “Chez Mosher”

And then there’s the splendid event scheduled at “Chez Mosher!” Sally Mosher is an artistic gift to the world, and benefactor par excellence to SAR. A composer (mostly on the harpsichord), musician, painter, designer, and esteemed lecturer on Renaissance music and culture of the 16th century, Sally also received her Juris Doctor from the USC School of Law and is a member of the California Bar. Plus she has a really cool house. For several SAR seasons, Sally has generously hosted a very special afternoon of music, high tea and conversation that would be the envy of Elizabeth herself. A Members Only event, this is worth your dues, and a lot more. Join us if you can on. March 17^th.

All SAR speaking events are FREE and Open to the Public (except the afternoon at Chez Mosher, which is MEMBERS ONLY). Of course the lectures are held locally in Beverly Hills, but we’re going to try and get as many of the talks as possible uploaded to our website, either in video or print format. If you’re in the area, please join us. But no matter what, we ask that you support the Roundtable with your membership and donations.

Mail Membership Dues to: 

Shakespeare Authorship Roundtable,

PO BOX  76,  Beverly Hills, CA 90213

Lectures are from 10:30-12:30pm

Roxbury Recreation Center, Room 101

471 S. Roxbury Dr. (Corner Roxbury & Olympic),

Beverly Hills, CA 90212

http://www.shakespeareauthorship.org