Justice Breyer Makes Chicago Acting Debut as Ghost in Hamlet

Justice Stephen G. Breyer makes his acting debut this weekend as the ghost in Hamlet.

A Shakespeare and the Law conference is the backdrop for the justice’s acting debut and includes a paper presentation by an appeals judge rumored to be a potential U.S. Supreme Court nominee, the Chicago Tribune reports.

Breyer is appearing in one of a collection of scenes from three Shakespeare plays at the conference sponsored by the University of Chicago Law School.

Judge Diane Wood of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals based in Chicago will explore Shakespeare’s treatment of laws that are not followed in a paper titled, "Law, Disobedience, Justification and Mercy.”

There is something of a split in the Supreme Court on whether Shakespeare the actor really wrote the plays attributed to him. Breyer backs Shakespeare, the Wall Street Journal reported last month, while Justice John Paul Stevens thinks the real author of the plays was the 17th earl of Oxford, Edward de Vere.