Shakespeare in Love would go on to win seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actress (Gwyneth Paltrow), Best Supporting Actress (Judi Dench), and Best Original Screenplay. In 1593 London, William Shakespeare is a sometime player in the Lord Chamberlain's Men and poor playwright for Philip Henslowe, owner of The Rose Theatre. Shakespeare is working on a new comedy, "Romeo and Ethel, the Pirate's Daughter". Suffering from writer's block, he has barely begun the play, and is further distracted by attempts both to seduce Rosaline, the mistress of Richard Burbage, owner of the rival Curtain Theatre and to convince Burbage to buy the
Shakespeare in Love which were a major influence on the development of English tragedy. Will is shown signing a paper repeatedly, with many relatively illegible signatures visible. This is a reference to the fact that several versions of Shakespeare's signature exist, and in each one he spelled his name differently. After the film's release, certain publications, including "Private Eye", noted strong similarities between the film and the 1941 novel "No Bed for Bacon", by Caryl Brahms and S. J. Simon, which also features Shakespeare falling in love and finding inspiration for his later plays. In a foreword to a subsequent edition of "No