Why nobody in Stratford knew that Shakespeare wrote plays in London.....because this never happened
Scene: Albert Hall, 1600
Announcer: And now for the award we have all be waiting for...the best play of 1599....The nominess are: Ben Jonson for "Everyman in his Humor"; Thomas Dekker for "Shoeman's Holiday"; John Webster for "The White Devil"; Thomas Middleton for "The Changeling"; and William Shakespeare for "Hamlet"
CUT to Stratford, New Place, the Shakespeare home....Ann Shakespeare is sitting looking at a TV, with her daughters Susanna and Judith; also some neighbors, the Quineys and some other locals.
Ann: "There's your father girls!!! He's lost some more hair!! Dr. Hall will have to send him some of his hair growing lotion...."Hamlet"....Juditn, do you think your father was thinking of Hamnet"
CUT: Back to Albert Hall
Announcer: And the winner of the Chaucer Award for the best play of 1599 is [rips open an envenope] William Shakespeare for "Hamlet"!!!!
SHOT of Shakespeare getting out of his seat in the audience and walking towards the stage, the audience applauding modestly...Shaking hands with Richard Burbage, and other members of his troupe....He gets up on the stage and walks to the podium where the announcer gives him a trophy with a figure on it Chaucer....
WS: "I want to thank the Lizbeth Academy for this award...I'm glad I was not one of the judges!! There was some real competition this year...Ben, Thomas, John....I have seen all their plays of course....any one of them deserved to win...this year was a high point in the history of the theater of London...
"I'd just like to say that the manuscript of "Hamlet" are just words on a page....it is the players that give life to those words...and I am the luckiest play writer in London, being part of the greatest troupe of actors in London...Richard Burbage, my good friend and the best actor in London, for whom I wrote Richard III, Romeo, and Brutus and Hamlet...Sorry, Richard that Hamlet is so long....Richard came to me and told me to end Hamlet soon...he could not memorize all those lines...I asked him "How?"...I really did not have a good ending...there were too many strings to tie together....so Richard said, with a bare bodkin at my back...."The usual way...with swords and poison!!" So I act a little in my plays and Richard writes a little of my plays...What a team!!!
Also I want to acknowledge my wife Ann, who is in Stratford watching this...and taking care of our children...she has put up with a lot from me...I could never have done this without her patience and love...this is for you, too, Ann!!!
[ THIS, of course is meant to be a play, not read...it should have a beautiful comic effect....]
