the dark lady

“the Case for AMELIA BASSANO LANIER is as PLAUSIBLE as Shakespeare’s”

(‘RETHINKING SHAKESPEARE’ The Queen’s Quarterly, 2008)

who is the dark lady?

Hundreds of years of searching for the author of the plays reached a climax when the Dark Lady Players put forward an innovative new solution. Our methodologies suggested they were written by the so-called ‘dark lady’ of the sonnets, Amelia Bassano Lanier (1569-1645). The first woman to publish a book of original poetry, she came from a family of Venetian Jews and was the long-term mistress to the man in charge of the English theater.

All great truths begin as blasphemies

-GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

i don't believe in shakespeare.

-the dark lady players

Our work soon led her to be listed as one of the leading authorship candidates with the Shakespearean Authorship Trust. In October 2009 Amel ia Bassano Lanier; A New Paradigm, a major article on our Dark Lady, appeared in a special issue of the Shakespearean authorship journal, The Oxfordian, focused on the top candidates.

The next year, a six-page cover story appeared in Reform Judaism Magazine. In January 2012, Stratfordian Professor William Green endorsed the new research. "...the scholarship is absolutely fascinating. There is a huge amount of documentary evidence to support the theory that it was not Will Shakespeare but Amelia Bassano Lanier."

To learn more about the Dark Lady, come to our next event! You can also read the text of a lecture given by DLP resident director Jenny Greeman and DLP artistic director and Amelia scholar John Hudson, Who Wrote Shakespeare?, watch the fifteen-minute mini-documentary The Dark Lady Discovery, read an interview with John in The Jewish Daily Forward, or see our feature story on the Jewish Channel News. You can even sit in on part of John's lecture on University Hour at Eastern Connecticut State University!

Most excitingly, John's forthcoming book, Shakespeare's Dark Lady: Amelia Bassano Lanier, The Woman Behind Shakespeare's Plays? is available for pre-order on Amazon and you can read the smashing reviews and a free excerpt right here! You can also find John's recommended reading on The Bassanos here.

Who is

The Dark Lady?

experimental shakespeare

in nyc