She's bringing Shakespeare controversy to film
Boston director Cheryl Eagan-Donovan is knee-deep in the Bard this summer, having optioned the rights to `` `Shakespeare' by Another Name." The divisive 2005 book, by Northampton writer Mark Anderson, argues that Elizabethan playwright Edward de Vere is the real Shakespeare.
``The Oxfordians, as they're called, believe that de Vere wrote the works," says Eagan-Donovan. ``A lot of them are neuroscientists, people with advanced degrees in fields other than literature. That part alone is a good story."
The emphasis in the film, she says, will be de Vere's life story, but ``Nothing Is Truer than Truth" will also address, she says, ``the relationships between truth and history, personality and genius, and writing and experience. All of these issues are part of the controversy that surrounds the authorship question." The film is being sponsored by IFP (Independent Feature Project) New York.
In May, Eagan-Donovan traveled to England with her son Liam to visit Castle Hedingham in Essex, the ancestral home of the de Vere family. Closer to home, Eagan-Donovan will be at Boston's Publick Theatre on Thursday interviewing the cast and audience at the opening night of ``The Beard of Avon." The play, by Amy Freed, looks specifically at the de Vere authorship question. Eagan-Donovan will also be filming this week at the Kidstock Creative Theater Education Center in Winchester, where students will be performing a musical version of ``Hamlet" for friends and family.
June has been a big month for the filmmaker. She became a board member of Women in Film & Video New England two weeks ago, and her do-it-yourself documentary ``All Kindsa Girls," about the Boston punk band the Real Kids, played to full houses at the North by Northeast Music & Film Festival in Toronto and Filmstock International Film Festival in Luton, England.
Eagan-Donovan wasn't able to attend the England festival, but a fan of the band introduced the film in her stead and dedicated the night to Allen ``Alpo" Paulino, a founding band member who died in February.
``All Kindsa Girls" will be shown Sept. 7 at MIT as part of Women in Film & Video's ``Chicks Make Flicks" series. For information about that screening and Eagan-Donovan's new documentary, visit www.controversyfilms.com .
MUSIC SERIES AT THE COOLIDGE: Every Monday night starting tomorrow and running through July 24, the Coolidge Corner Theatre will present a combo of live music and films about music. Tomorrow's 7 p.m. event starts with a 20-minute performance by jazz pianist Brenden Lowe and alto sax player Grace Kelly. Lowe is a former student at the Brookline Music School and Kelly currently studies there, according to Valerie Nelson, executive director of the 82-year-old school.
A double features follows: ``The Sound of Jazz," which documents a December 1957 concert by Count Basie, Billie Holiday, Thelonious Monk, Coleman Hawkins, Gerry Mulligan, Henry Red Allen, and Jimmy Rushing, and ``Keeping Time: The Life, Music, and Photographs of Milt Hilton." Information about tomorrow's show and the other events in the Summertime Blues Series is at 617-734-2500 and www.coolidge.org .
THE BRATTLE AND MYSPACE: Thousands of filmmakers and musicians use MySpace.com to send their work out to the teeny screens and tinny speakers of computers worldwide. Now MySpace.com is shifting direction by sponsoring a tour that's bringing films and music back to the big screen and live audiences nationally. Called the Bside Roadshow, the one-night event comes to the Brattle Theatre on Tuesday at 8 p.m.
In each city, one of three touring films plays. The one that will be in Cambridge is Benjamin Morgan's ``Quality of Life," a feature about two young men whose compulsion to make street graffiti leads to legal and relationship problems. The film played at festivals in 2004 and was given a special mention at the Berlin International Film Festival that year. It recently won the MySpace audience choice award.
As part of the tour, the Boston band the Indefinite Article will play at the Middle East in Cambridge the same night. The unsigned band is another MySpace success story, with its site -- at www.myspace.com/theindefinitearticle -- viewed more than 27,000 times. Information about the evening is at www.bside.com .
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ``ON GOLDEN POND": The Hepburn/Fonda/Fonda movie came out 25 years ago, and the New Hampshire Film and Television Office is celebrating the anniversary with an exhibit of photographs, props, and mementos. The exhibit is at the Map Gallery of the State Library in Concord through Thursday and will move through the state's Lakes Region during the summer. Details at 603-271-2220 and www.nh.gov/film .
AND CONGRATULATIONS (AGAIN): Seven weeks ago, we noted that a team of Emerson College students led by Daniel Madden and Anthony Saccoccia won the Boston round of the CampusMovieFest '06, which bills itself as ``the world's largest student film festival." The festival's grand finale round was held earlier this month in Atlanta, and this time the film took best drama honors, one of just three prizes awarded. The film, along with finalists from Tufts and Northeastern, is online at www.campusmoviefest.com.
Leslie Brokaw can be reached at lbrokaw@globe.com. 
