WHEN a middle-aged boy player returns to London’s Globe playhouse during a terrible revival of Romeo and Juliet, she sets off a chain of events as great as any of Shakespeare’s entertainments, revealing a love story that lay hidden for decades, just beneath the lines of the script.

Centuries later, an out-of-work Sydney actor connects the dots of this drama and is inspired to write a play, bringing him face to face with big life lessons in the art and politics of storytelling.

“A poignant intersection of theatre and reality, highlighting the Bard’s resilient universality 400 years after his death.” – Daniel Seed

The lives of these two unconventional players collide in a journey from Australia to England, from drama school to the professional stage, from male to female, from failure to success and back again, exploring the untold story of those who created the complete works of William Shakespeare. 

This omnibus edition of Merely Players includes Michael’s literary non-fiction debut Acting like Shakespeare really matters, the full script of his two-act play Merely Players, and two articles – LGBTI Labour’s Lost: a case for transgender players, and William Shakespeare: a farmer who cultivated words.

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Performance rights for Merely Players are available via the ePlay rights page.

© Michael Burge, all rights reserved.