By Ken Longworth for the Newcastle Herald, 12 April 2015
The premiere of Where Late the Songbird at the Civic Playhouse on April 22 is appropriate. That is the birth date of the play’s central character, William Shakespeare. Or is it?
Carl Caulfield, who wrote the play and is cast as the Bard, extensively researched Shakespeare’s life while on a visit to England.
He said the church beside the site where the playwright is buried notes April 22 as the birth date. But there is no official record of his birth, though he is known to have been baptised on April 26, 1564, and there is a lot of argument about whether he was born on April 21, 22 or 23.
His death on April 23, 1616, is recorded, with many scholars suggesting he died on his birthday.
Where Late the Songbird is set in the last years of Shakespeare’s life, with the writer-actor returning to his Stratford home in 1613 after spending most of his time from the late 1580s in London.
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