Once a boy player in Shakespeare’s company, Sander Cooke is now a hired man playing female roles. When Frances Field reveals she is pregnant by Sander’s brother, Johnny, a fellow actor and aspiring playwright, John makes it clear that marriage is not in his plans. But if Frances gives birth to a bastard, she’ll lose her shop on London Bridge and her position as one of Queen Elizabeth’s Silkwomen. Sander would like to come to Frances’ rescue: only Sander has a secret, kept both onstage and off. She is actually a woman. Even their friend Moll Frith, who goes around blatantly as a man, wouldn’t marry a woman, but she does find Sander and Frances a wayward, short-sighted priest to perform the ceremony. It is a marriage of convenience, but can these two women make a true union of it? Winding around this unconventional marriage is Sander’s actor’s view of Shakespeare’s plays and theatre of the era, alongside political anxieties and rebellion, troubles in Ireland, the plague, and the aging Queen’s failure to name a successor.

Early reviews:

From its opening pages, Bedtrick envelopes us in its richly imagined world as we cheer for its genderbending hero, Sander Cooke, a character so complex and appealing surely Shakespeare himself would have envied Webber’s creation.
          —David Starkey, author of What Just Happened

Steeped in the mores and events of Shakespeare’s London, Bedtrick vibrates with contemporary resonance.
            —Paul Mason Barnes, Director, Great River Shakespeare Festival

Passion, sensuality, sexuality, and survival interwoven into a rollicking fine tale. Webber brings Shakespeare’s era to life, engaging us both on and off the stage.