David Medina - "Shakespeare's Greatest Love" - Jorge Valdivia

David Medina will discuss his new book, Shakespeare's Greatest Love. He will be joined in conversation by Jorge Valdivia. A Q&A session and book signing will follow the discussion. 

At the Co-op

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About the Book: Relying on historical and literary evidence hidden in plain sight, Shakespeare’s Greatest Love tells the true, uncensored love story of William Shakespeare and Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton.

“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate.”
—­Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18, written for and about Southampton.

Leaving behind a wife and three young children in Stratford-upon-Avon, Shakespeare moved to London for its thrilling theater scene, where everyone mixed freely across ages, classes, and ranks.

It was through their mutual passion for the theater that the handsome twenty-seven-year-old playwright first met and fell deeply in love with the effeminate seventeen-year-old earl who beguiled men and women alike and avowed that ‘desire and pleasure [should] sometimes triumph over reason.’

Author David Medina demonstrates that Shakespeare wrote more of his plays and poems for and about Southampton than anyone else—works that are sexually charged, romantic, and homoerotic. He also chronicles the evidence that Southampton provided Shakespeare the support he needed to secure his acting company share, coat of arms, family residence, royal commission, life portrait, and funerary bust.

Shakespeare and Southampton’s personal and professional relationship evolved privately and publicly over a quarter century against the backdrop of a national anti-sodomy law, multiple plague outbreaks, unexpected pregnancies, rushed and possibly forced marriages, a failed rebellion, and political imprisonments.

Shakespeare’s Greatest Love challenges us all to recognize Southampton as the individual who had the most significant impact on Shakespeare’s life, literature, and legacy.

About the Author: David Medina has more than thirty years of national policy and political experience in Washington D.C.. He has held senior roles in the White House, U.S. Senate, national labor and civil rights organizations, and presidential campaigns. He is a cofounder of Results for America, a national organization that helps governments at all levels build and use evidence and data. David received his B.A. from the University of Chicago and M.P.P. from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.

About the Interlocutor: Jorge Valdivia is the Executive Director of the Chicago Latino Theater Alliance (CLATA), dedicated to promoting diversity and equity through arts advocacy, public engagement, and social practice. Under his leadership, CLATA produces Destinos: Chicago International Latino Theater Festival, Destinos al Aire, Inicios: Chicago Latine Playwright Festival, and Latine Theatre Artist Week while also advocating for Latine theatres and artists across Chicagoland.

Before CLATA, Valdivia was the Director of Performing Arts at the National Museum of Mexican Art, producing an international performing arts festival and curating events in literature, film, and performing arts. He also served as General Manager of Radio Arte WRTE 90.5FM, a youth-driven community station, where he founded Homofrecuencia, the first Spanish-language LGBTQ radio program in U.S. history. A Chicago LGBT Hall of Fame inductee (2009), Valdivia has been recognized for his contributions to uplifting Chicago’s LGBT Latine community through arts and media. He has served as a panelist, juror, and presenter for institutions such as the National Endowment for the Arts, The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage, the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs, The McCormick Foundation, and Latinos Progresando’s Mex Talks, among others.

Valdivia holds a B.A. in Arts Administration & Cultural Policy from DePaul University and an M.A. in Public Policy from the University of Chicago's Harris School of Public Policy. He is a 2023 fellow of the Center for Effective Governance's Civic Leadership Academy.