The scene opens on a river scene. Plentiful swans are placidly swimming. The camera pans to a bridge – not a modern bridge, but a Tudor-era wooden bridge. A young man in early-modern dress leans on the bridge, watching the swans.
“Master Will,” says a female voice. “Well-met, indeed. I wondered if I might find you here.”
The young man smiles shyly. “Mistress Anne. Would it sound a lie if I confessed I was just thinking of you?”
Voice-over: [dreamy, sultry feminine voice] You have read his stories, seen them play out on stage and screen.
The camera irises out. We see the same young man walks in a dense wood, telling himself a story about a fairy queen and her kingly husband, who seeks to embarrass her after she snubs him. Not all of what he says is audible, but the audience can make out the names – Titania and Oberon.
Voice-over: [same voice] But what of the mind that conceived them?
The camera irises out. We see a montage. Will traveling to London. Will meeting men at alehouses, getting deep into discussion with them. The Globe being built. An early rehearsal. Culminating with criers touting Julius Caesar. The montage slows to show us a bit of the “Ides of March” speech.
Voice-over: [same voice] This fall, in theaters everywhere, the tale of William Shakespeare, the Swan of Avon, THE BARD.
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