Helpful Score: 2
London 1588. Plague decimates the city, and Holy Catholic Spain threatens to sail its gunboats up the Thames. In the rat-ridden Clink prison languish Puritans and papists who have dared to defy the Protestant queen, Elizabeth, or her bishops. The heads of the queen's boldest enemies rot on the pikes of London Bridge. But four streets away, in the crowded and raucous Rose Theatre, a group of men and boys say what they will. They are the players, and the bravest of them is a quiet youth who finds honest voice on the dirty planks of the stage. He kindles the malice of the great, but with his angel's tongue he evades all punishment. His name is William Shakespeare.
