Lauren Gunderson’s Women Keep Shakespeare’s Words Alive!

by Lynne Stevens

Lauren Gunderson convinces us that we must thank women for the very first collection of Shakespeare’s plays. If not for women behind the scenes, there would never have been the First Folio. Five ingenious women, true patrons of the arts, push their men to publish Will’s manuscripts as he wrote them.

We laugh as the men exchange quips with clever Alice Heminges (enchanting Jannely Calmell), who serves ale at her father’s pub. They joke about the confused version performed by the novice Boy Hamlet (lively Sam Hjelmstad). Many actors performed the “bad quarto” versions because only scraps of the plays were floating around.

Three veteran actors, drinking at the Tap House run by John Heminges (thoughtful Malcolm Rodgers), lament the flawed scripts and off-hand performances of Shakespeare’s plays. The great actor Richard Burbage (powerful Marty Pistone) is so incensed he leaps up and performs memorable speeches by heart. Burbage knows them all!

The next thing we know we are at Burbage’s funeral where Rebecca Heminges (delightful Cathleen Riddley) sings beautifully, setting a persistant tone of comradeship and love.

Costume designer Valera Coble pulls out the stops dressing each character according to their station. Printer Jaggard (versatile Pistone)  is in all in black velvet and Rebecca wears soft grey and lace collar. Set Designer Ron Krempetz’s glorious half-timbered pub and wooden printing press complete the Elizabethan picture.

How to keep the plays alive? Under pressure from their wives, veteran actors Heminges and Henry Condell (warm-hearted Fred Pitts), decide that they must find the lost scripts. The women keep urging the men to collect random scripts and make the book., a huge undertaking. With the help of sweet scribe Ralph Crane (magnetic Steve Rhyne) in a flurry of activity, they all begin the thrilling, comic hunt for missing plays and pages.

The friends of Will note nostalgically that the plays are often about sons without fathers and husbands without wives. But Rebecca’s spirit inspires them and urges them on.

After gathering the scripts of eighteen plays, Heminges and Condell run out of money. Enter W. Jaggard, the con-man who has been publishing “bad quartos.” They wonder if Jaggard’s son Isaac (elegant Sean Mireles Boulton) can be trusted.

The actors appeal to rival poet Ben Jonson (sharp-tongued Michael Paul Thomsett) and to Emilia Lanier (sassy Kelly Rinehart). After some flattery, Emilia, Shakespeare’s “Dark Lady,” agrees to fund the printing. She exclaims: “God he was good, and his plays are not bad either.”

Everyone is jubilant as the last stitch is sewn and the friends present the First Folio to Shakespeare’s wife Anne Hathaway (serene Riddley), in a touching scene of friendship and joy.

In beautiful cacophony the actors crowd the stage, delivering overlapping lines from the Folio—a gorgeous crescendo that brought tears to my eyes:

All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts.
                     —William Shakespeare, As You Like It

But even these wonderous women cannot do it all. There was no NEA for funding the arts then and artists needed patrons. They need to have patrons now too. Even more reason to see Gunderson’s women behind “The Book of Will.”

“The Book of Will” by Lauren Gunderson, directed by Mary Ann Rodgers, set designed by Ron Krempetz, lighting by Ellen Brooks, costumes by Valera Coble, sound by Billie Cox, choreography by Jennifer LeBlanc, at Ross Valley Players, Ross, California. Info: rossvalleyplayers.com – to June 8, 2025.

Cast: Sean Mireles Boulton, Jannely Calmell, Raysheina de Leon-Ruhs, Sam Hjelmstad, Marty Pistone, Fred Pitts, Cathleen Riddley*, Steve Rhyne, Kelly Rinehart, Malcolm Rodgers, David Smith, Michael-Paul Thomsett, and Ben Vasquez.

Banner photo: Malcolm Rodgers & Cathleen Riddley. Photos: Robin Jackson