Nominee for 2008 Pulitzer Prize. The English Channel examines the murky relationship between great writers and their proclivity to "borrow" ideas and material, tracing Shakespeare's relationship with The Earl of Southampton, the Dark Lady of the Sonnets, and Christopher Marlowe during the turbulent months before Marlowe's death.

The English Channe is the first piece in a trilogy of plays by Robert Brustein about the life of Shakespeare. The second installment is