Plots and Players — Pamela Melnikoff

It is 1594 and young William Shakespeare is working on a new play, The Merchant of Venice, amid growing anti-Jewish sentiment in England. Three Jewish children try to save Queen Elizabeth's Jewish physician when he's falsely accused of spying for Spain. Not until Shakespeare meets the Fernandez family does he begin to see the prejudice around him. But will he soften his portrait of Shylock, his play's lead character? And can the children save the physician's life?