Controversy Films documented the Ashland Authorship Conference in Oregon last month for the upcoming film Nothing is Truer than Truth. In addition to filming the signing of the Declaration of Reasonable Doubt and Keir Cutler’s performance of Mark Twain’s Is Shakespeare Dead? the crew filmed interviews with several notable conference attendees, including Michael Cecil, 18th Baron Burghley, who shared his thoughts on his distant grandfather, William Cecil, and his uncle by marriage, Edward de Vere. Now a resident of Ashland, Michael spoke about Hamlet as a biography of the man who wrote Shakespeare, and gave a lecture on “Revisiting the First Baron Burghley’s Precepts for the Well Ordering and Carriage of a Man’s Life.” This small book, written around 1582, first printed in 1616, and passed down for generations in the Cecil family, was captured on film by the Controversy crew. The book is believed by many scholars to be the source for Polonius’ maxims in Hamlet, such as “This above all: to thine own self be true.” Other scholars, actors, and theater luminaries interviewed for the film include Paul Nicholson, Executive Director of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and award-wining actors James Newcomb and Keir Cutler.

Michael Cecil, Baron Burghley, and Cheryl Eagan-Donovan at Ashland Authorship Conference