The Shakespeare Plays - Virtual Pitch (3 minutes)

Описание: THE SHAKESPEARE PLAYS is a biopic of The Bard that for the first time ever tells the full story of William Shakespeare. There have been fantasies and fictions, but no screenplay has even attempted to tell the true story of Shakespeare’s life and work – until now. THE SHAKESPEARE PLAYS is told in three parts.

Part One (Comedy) takes place in 1598, when Shakespeare is making a name for himself as a playwright. However, he and his company of players face eviction from their theatre by their Puritanical landlord, who loathes plays and players. Consequently, Shakespeare and his men - led by the joint company managers, John Hemings and Henry Condell, and the leading man, Richard Burbage - decide to steal the theatre. Over Christmas, while their Landlord is visiting relatives, they take the theatre apart - nail by nail, and plank by plank - and transport it across the frozen Thames to a new site on the south bank of the river.

Part Two (History) takes place in 1601, when Shakespeare is the most popular playwright in London. He is visited by his former patron, the Earl of Southampton, but Southampton no longer acts like a “patron”. Instead, he blackmails Shakespeare and his players into performing a banned play in honour of his master, the Earl of Essex, who is under house arrest for treason; Southampton plans to stir up Essex’s former soldiers to petition the Queen for Essex’s release. Having no choice, Shakespeare and his players perform the play, but the very next day Southampton and Essex launch a rebellion against the Queen. The rebellion fails, Essex and Southampton are captured, and their so-called “sympathisers” are soon being rounded up. Can Shakespeare and his players convince the authorities of their innocence, or will they too be executed?

Part Three (Tragedy) takes place in 1616, when Shakespeare has retired from the stage and returned to his home town of Stratford as a conquering hero. However, within six months a family scandal turns him from a happily retired grandfather to a bitter, broken man who longs for death.


EPILOGUE: Among Shakespeare’s pallbearers are his former company managers, John Hemings and Henry Condell. When they return to London, where they still run The Globe, Hemings discovers that Ben Jonson, Shakespeare’s greatest rival, has published his plays, to preserve them for posterity. Hemings resolves to do the same for Shakespeare, but Condell informs him that they only have half of Shakespeare’s plays, the other half having been lost over the years. Hemings says that if they cannot save the man, they must save the work. So, Hemings and Condell set out to find Shakespeare’s lost plays.

Finally, I will say why The Shakespeare Plays should be made now. 2023 will be the 400th anniversary of the publication of The First Folio, the first ever collection of Shakespeare’s plays, which Hemings and Condell oversaw and without which half of Shakespeare’s plays might never have survived. The whole world will celebrate that anniversary, so there will be a guaranteed global audience for The Shakespeare Plays. I hope that you will give me the chance to make it.