SHAKESPEARE’S SHIPWRECK TRACKED TO PLAINVILLE

Public media series connects the Bard to the Mayflower in historical film

The Plainville Public Library invites you to screening of Stephano: The True Story of Shakespeare’s Shipwreck and an exclusive Q&A session with the fimmaker Wednesday September 15. Two-time Emmy nominated producer Andrew Giles Buckley and his intrepid Hit and Run History crew are hot on the trail of Stephen Hopkins, a Virginia-bound castaway who found his way not only onto the decks of the Mayflower a decade later, but immortalized on the stage as the drunken Stephano in Shakespeare’s final play, . The 90-minute film follows the story of the only Mayflower passenger who had been to North America previously. A decade earlier, Stephen Hopkins was aboard a Jamestown-bound ship that wrecked on , inspiring Shakespeare's final play, The Tempest. Shot on location, Hit and Run History retraces Hopkins’ life crisscrossing the Atlantic. The program starts at 6:30 PM at the Town Hall Meeting Room, 190 South Street in Plainviile. After the film, audience members can stay for a Q&A with Buckley. Stephano was broadcast this spring on Rhode PBS and WETA in Washington, DC. Buckley, a Hopkins descendant, grew up hearing stories that New Plymouth’s iconoclast tavern keeper may have the model of The Tempest’s drunken and mutinous Stephano. In their Gumshoe Historian style, Hit and Run History seek out the reality of a man who was everywhere at the founding of America. This program is supported in part by a grant from the Plainville Cultural Council, a local agency which is supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency. Watch the trailer here.