Playing company
Encyclopedia
In Renaissance
London
, playing company was the usual term for a company of actor
s. These companies were organized around a group of ten or so shareholder
s (or "sharers"), who performed in the plays but were also responsible for management. The sharers employed "hired men" — that is, the minor actors and the workers behind the scenes. The major companies were based at specific theatres in London
; the most successful of them, William Shakespeare
's company the King's Men
, had the open-air Globe Theatre
for summer seasons and the enclosed Blackfriars Theatre
in the winters. The Admiral's Men
occupied the Rose Theatre
in the 1590s, and the Fortune Theatre
in the early 17th century.
Less fortunate companies spent most of their existences touring the provinces; when Worcester's Men
gained official permission to perform in London in 1602
, they were, in a manner of speaking, "coming in from the cold" of a life of constant touring.
In the later Medieval
and early Renaissance
periods, wealthy and powerful English noble houses sometimes maintained a troupe of half a dozen "players," just as noblemen kept jesters
or jugglers for entertainment. English theatre benefited greatly from the predilection for theatricality displayed by the Tudors
. Henry VII
kept a company of players called the "Lusores Regis", which probably consisted of four men and a boy who were used to swift costume changes and multiple roles. In the early period the difference between players, acrobat
s and other entertainers was not hard and fast. A troupe of players, however, was more costly to keep than a jester; players (who usually had other household duties as well) could defray expenses by touring to various cities and performing for profit — a practice that began the evolution away from the medieval model of noble patronage and toward the commercial and capitalistic model of modern entertainment. It is from the scattered records of such touring, and from occasional performances at the English Royal Court, that our very limited knowledge of English Renaissance theatre
in the early and middle 16th century derives.
One curious development of this era was the development of companies of pre-pubescent boy actors. The use of the boy player
in companies of adult actors to play female parts can be traced far back in the history of medieval theatre
, in the famous mystery play
s and moralities
; the employment of casts of boys for entire dramatic productions began in the early 16th century, which utilized the boys' choirs connected with cathedrals, churches, and schools. In time the practice took on a professional aspect and companies of child actors would play an important role in the development of drama through the Elizabethan era
and into the Jacobean
and Caroline
periods that followed. (See: Children of the Chapel
; Children of Paul's
; Beeston's Boys
; King's Revels Children
.)
was worth £100 — and Alleyn was one of nine sharers in the company at the time. When a company got itself into financial difficulties, the members sometimes had to pawn their costumes, as Pembroke's Men
did in the plague year of 1593.
In 1605 the actor Augustine Phillips
left specific pieces of his wardrobe to an apprentice in his last will and testament — including his "mouse-colored" velvet hose, purple cloak, white taffeta doublet, and black taffeta suit. To a modern sensibility, this may sound quaint and odd; but when "a doublet and hose of seawater green satin cost £3," the monetary value of Phillips' items was not negligible. Actors could face serious penalties for appropriating the costumes of their companies. [See Robert Dawes
for an example.]
(The players could defray some of their costs in the used clothing market. Often, "eminent lords and knights at their decease" would leave articles of their finery to their servants — much of it "unseemly" for servingmen and women to wear. Such garments would end up the property of the actors.)
A second major cost lay in play scripts. In the years around 1600, playwrights could be paid as little as £6 to £7 per play (or about the price of two suits). Yet since the companies acted a constantly-changing repertory, they needed an abundant supply of plays. Philip Henslowe
's Diary records dozens of titles for the 1597–1603 period; when Worcester's Men
were setting up for their first London season in 1602, they purchased a dozen new plays from Henslowe's stable of house playwrights, to supplement their existing stock.
The sharers in the company also paid wages to their hired men and boys. Wages differed somewhat over time and from company to company and case to case; but the general average minimum was 1 shilling
per man per day, the same wage as that of an artisan worker. Boys cost perhaps half as much, though they were often maintained under some version of an apprenticeship arrangement, which could vary widely in details.
. Other restrictions were laid upon the players, some of which they evaded as consistently as they could. They were supposed to cease playing entirely during Lent
— but violated this stricture regularly. In the spring of 1592, for example, the Lord Strange's Men
played daily at the Rose Theatre
right through Lent. After 1623, companies circumvented the Lenten restriction through the simple expedient of paying bribes to Sir Henry Herbert, the Master of the Revels
.
One restriction that the players observed, one that was too serious to violate, was the prohibition enforced whenever bubonic plague
rose from endemic to epidemic levels. Through much of the English Renaissance period, the theatres were shut down when the death figures in the plague bill (the weekly mortality report for London and some suburban parishes) rose above a certain level. In 1604 that cut-off number was set at 30 per week; in 1607 it was raised to 40. A serious epidemic closed the theatres almost entirely from June 1592 through April 1594; 11,000 Londoners died of plague in 1593. (The plague tended to abate in the colder weather of winter; the theatres opened for short seasons during the winter months of those years.) 1603 was another bad plague year, with 30,000 deaths in London; the theatres were closed from March of 1603 to perhaps April of 1604.
Other serious epidemics caused theatre closures in 1625 (for eight months, to October) and from May 1636 to October 1637. These periods of closure were always traumatically difficult for the acting troupes; some survived by touring cities and towns outside of London...and some didn't survive at all.
built the first fixed and permanent venue for drama, The Theatre
, in 1576
was the one great step away from the medieval organizational model and toward the commercial theatre; but that evolution was, at best, a "work in progress" throughout the English Renaissance. Throughout this period, troupes of actors needed to maintain the patronage of a noble household. The prevailing legal system in England defined "masterless men" who travelled about the country as vagabonds, and subjected them to treatments of varying harshness. Local authorities tended to be more hostile than welcoming toward players; the Corporation of London, from the Lord Mayor and aldermen down, was famously hostile to acting troupes, as were the Puritans. Noble patronage was, at the very least, the legal fig leaf that allowed professional players to function in society.
In some cases, more so toward the end of the period, noble patronage was nothing more than that legal fig leaf; a company of actors was an independent entity, financially and otherwise. Conversely, some noblemen were beneficent patrons of their players. The Lords Hunsdon — Henry Carey, 1st Baron Hunsdon
(c. 1524–96), and his son George Carey, 2nd Baron Hunsdon
(1547–1603) — were valuable protectors of their own company, and, when they served in the office of Lord Chamberlain
(1585–96 and 1597–1603 respectively), of English drama as a whole.
That company of Hunsdon's, known to posterity as The Lord Chamberlain's Men, was organized somewhat like a modern joint-stock commercial company (the concept of which was just beginning to evolve in this era) at its re-formation in 1594
, after the long plague closure. The company had a small number of partners or shareholders, who pooled their funds to pay expenses and in turn shared the profits, in what was largely a de-facto democratic way (at least for the sharers, if not for the hired men and apprentices they employed). Their main rivals, the Admiral's Men, suffered in contrast under a less ideal version of capitalist organization: Philip Henslowe
functioned more like a blend of big-business autocrat, landlord, and loan shark. He managed multiple companies of actors and built and owned several theatres, and controlled players (sharers included) and playwrights by doling out payments and loans. (The silver lining in this cloud is that Henslowe's surviving financial records provide a wealth of detailed knowledge about the theatre conditions in his era that is unparalleled by any other source.) Other companies varied between these extremes of organization. (Francis Langley
, builder of the Swan Theatre
, operated much as Henslowe did, though less successfully, and for a shorter time.)
Drama in the age of Elizabeth
was at best an organized disorder; suppression of individual companies, and even the profession as a whole, for political reasons was not unknown. [See: The Isle of Dogs
.] Local residents sometimes opposed theatres in their neighborhoods. Individual companies of actors struggled and failed and recombined; tracking the changes has been the obsession of scholars and the bain of students.
Yet the drama was also enormously popular, from the Queen and Court down to the commonest of the common people; indeed, the odd polarity of the theatre audience in this period, with the High and the Low favoring the drama, and the middle class generally more hostile with the growth of Puritan sentiments, is a surprising and intriguing phenomenon. Theatres proliferated, especially (though not exclusively) in neighborhoods outside the city's walls and the Corporation's control — in Shoreditch
to the north, or the Bankside
and Paris Garden in Southwark
, on the southern bank of the River Thames
: the Curtain
, the Rose
, the Swan
, the Fortune
, the Globe
, the Blackfrairs
— a famous roster.
, "VI and I," was passionately fond of drama; and theatrical activity at Court accelerated from the start of his reign. Consider the following figures.
In roughly the last decade of Elizabeth's reign, 1594–1603, there were 64 theatrical performances at Court, for an average of 6 or 7 a year:
Compare a total of 299 for a somewhat longer period in the first portion of James' reign, 1603–16, an average of more than 20 per year:
The major companies acquired royal patronage: the Lord Chamberlain's Men
became the King's Men
, and the Admiral's Men
became Prince Henry's Men, under the patronage of the King's eldest son. A company of Queen Anne's Men
was built out of the pre-existent Oxford's and Pembroke's Men
, companies that were largely devoted to touring the provinces in the previous reign. In 1608 a company was organized under the title of the King's second son, the eight-year-old Charles; this company, the Duke of York's Men, was called Prince Charles's Men
after Prince Henry unexpectedly died in 1612.
Companies continued to form, evolve, and dissolve in the early Jacobean era — the King's Revels Children
, the Lady Elizabeth's Men
; but by the mid-point of James' reign, around the time of Shakespeare's death in 1616
, the dramatic scene had generally stabilized into four important companies. These were: the King's Men, at the Globe and Blackfriars Theatres; the Palsgrave's Men (formerly the Admiral's and Prince Henry's Men), at the Fortune; Prince Charles's Men
, at the Hope
; and Queen Anne's Men
, at the Red Bull Theatre
.
Theatrical evolution continued, sometimes tied to the lives and deaths of royal patrons. Queen Anne's Men disbanded with the death of Anne of Denmark
in 1619; the accession of a new queen in 1625 saw the creation of Queen Henrietta's Men
. Occasionally there were other new companies like Beeston's Boys
, and new theatres like the Salisbury Court
. The two prolonged closings of the London theatres due to plague, in 1625 and 1636–37, caused significant disruption in the acting profession, with companies breaking apart, combining and re-combining, and switching theatres, in a dizzying confusion. (Only the King's Men were exempt.) Political suppressions also came along in the Stuart era, though they affected only single offending companies — until a general political suppression closed the theatres from 1642
to 1660
, and brought the age of English Renaissance theatre
to its end.
English Renaissance
The English Renaissance was a cultural and artistic movement in England dating from the late 15th and early 16th centuries to the early 17th century. It is associated with the pan-European Renaissance that is usually regarded as beginning in Italy in the late 14th century; like most of northern...
London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, playing company was the usual term for a company of actor
Actor
An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...
s. These companies were organized around a group of ten or so shareholder
Shareholder
A shareholder or stockholder is an individual or institution that legally owns one or more shares of stock in a public or private corporation. Shareholders own the stock, but not the corporation itself ....
s (or "sharers"), who performed in the plays but were also responsible for management. The sharers employed "hired men" — that is, the minor actors and the workers behind the scenes. The major companies were based at specific theatres in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
; the most successful of them, William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
's company the King's Men
King's Men (playing company)
The King's Men was the company of actors to which William Shakespeare belonged through most of his career. Formerly known as The Lord Chamberlain's Men during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, it became The King's Men in 1603 when King James ascended the throne and became the company's patron.The...
, had the open-air Globe Theatre
Globe Theatre
The Globe Theatre was a theatre in London associated with William Shakespeare. It was built in 1599 by Shakespeare's playing company, the Lord Chamberlain's Men, and was destroyed by fire on 29 June 1613...
for summer seasons and the enclosed Blackfriars Theatre
Blackfriars Theatre
Blackfriars Theatre was the name of a theatre in the Blackfriars district of the City of London during the Renaissance. The theatre began as a venue for child actors associated with the Queen's chapel choirs; in this function, the theatre hosted some of the most innovative drama of Elizabeth and...
in the winters. The Admiral's Men
Admiral's Men
The Admiral's Men was a playing company or troupe of actors in the Elizabethan and Stuart eras...
occupied the Rose Theatre
The Rose (theatre)
The Rose was an Elizabethan theatre. It was the fourth of the public theatres to be built, after The Theatre , the Curtain , and the theatre at Newington Butts The Rose was an Elizabethan theatre. It was the fourth of the public theatres to be built, after The Theatre (1576), the Curtain (1577),...
in the 1590s, and the Fortune Theatre
Fortune Playhouse
The Fortune Playhouse was an historic theatre in London. It was located between Whitecross Street and the modern Golden Lane, just outside the City of London...
in the early 17th century.
Less fortunate companies spent most of their existences touring the provinces; when Worcester's Men
Worcester's Men
The Earl of Worcester's Men was an acting company in Renaissance England. An early formation of the company, wearing the livery of William Somerset, 3rd Earl of Worcester, is among the companies known to have toured the country in the mid-sixteenth century...
gained official permission to perform in London in 1602
1602 in literature
The year 1602 in literature involved some significant events.-Events:*February 2 - The King's Men perform Twelfth Night at the Middle Temple.*May 4 - Richard Hakluyt is installed as prebendary of Westminster....
, they were, in a manner of speaking, "coming in from the cold" of a life of constant touring.
Origins
The development of theatre in England in the 16th and 17th centuries was not an isolated phenomenon; similar developments occurred simultaneously in other European countries, to greater or lesser degrees. The same broad factors influenced English actors as those that affected actors in neighboring countries, especially Scotland, France, Denmark, and states in northern Germany like Saxony and the Rhineland Palatinate. Yet conditions in other societies also differed significantly from those in England; the following discussion applies specifically to England in the 16th century and 17th century.In the later Medieval
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
and early Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
periods, wealthy and powerful English noble houses sometimes maintained a troupe of half a dozen "players," just as noblemen kept jesters
Court jester
A jester, joker, jokester, fool, wit-cracker, prankster, or buffoon was a person employed to tell jokes and provide general entertainment, typically for a European monarch. Jesters are stereotypically thought to have worn brightly colored clothes and eccentric hats in a motley pattern...
or jugglers for entertainment. English theatre benefited greatly from the predilection for theatricality displayed by the Tudors
Tudor dynasty
The Tudor dynasty or House of Tudor was a European royal house of Welsh origin that ruled the Kingdom of England and its realms, including the Lordship of Ireland, later the Kingdom of Ireland, from 1485 until 1603. Its first monarch was Henry Tudor, a descendant through his mother of a legitimised...
. Henry VII
Henry VII of England
Henry VII was King of England and Lord of Ireland from his seizing the crown on 22 August 1485 until his death on 21 April 1509, as the first monarch of the House of Tudor....
kept a company of players called the "Lusores Regis", which probably consisted of four men and a boy who were used to swift costume changes and multiple roles. In the early period the difference between players, acrobat
Acrobatics
Acrobatics is the performance of extraordinary feats of balance, agility and motor coordination. It can be found in many of the performing arts, as well as many sports...
s and other entertainers was not hard and fast. A troupe of players, however, was more costly to keep than a jester; players (who usually had other household duties as well) could defray expenses by touring to various cities and performing for profit — a practice that began the evolution away from the medieval model of noble patronage and toward the commercial and capitalistic model of modern entertainment. It is from the scattered records of such touring, and from occasional performances at the English Royal Court, that our very limited knowledge of English Renaissance theatre
English Renaissance theatre
English Renaissance theatre, also known as early modern English theatre, refers to the theatre of England, largely based in London, which occurred between the Reformation and the closure of the theatres in 1642...
in the early and middle 16th century derives.
One curious development of this era was the development of companies of pre-pubescent boy actors. The use of the boy player
Boy player
Boy player is a common term for the adolescent males employed by Medieval and English Renaissance playing companies. Some boy players worked for the mainstream companies and performed the female roles, as women did not perform on the English stage in this period...
in companies of adult actors to play female parts can be traced far back in the history of medieval theatre
Medieval theatre
Medieval theatre refers to the theatre of Europe between the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century A.D. and the beginning of the Renaissance in approximately the 15th century A.D...
, in the famous mystery play
Mystery play
Mystery plays and miracle plays are among the earliest formally developed plays in medieval Europe. Medieval mystery plays focused on the representation of Bible stories in churches as tableaux with accompanying antiphonal song...
s and moralities
Morality play
The morality play is a genre of Medieval and early Tudor theatrical entertainment. In their own time, these plays were known as "interludes", a broader term given to dramas with or without a moral theme. Morality plays are a type of allegory in which the protagonist is met by personifications of...
; the employment of casts of boys for entire dramatic productions began in the early 16th century, which utilized the boys' choirs connected with cathedrals, churches, and schools. In time the practice took on a professional aspect and companies of child actors would play an important role in the development of drama through the Elizabethan era
Elizabethan era
The Elizabethan era was the epoch in English history of Queen Elizabeth I's reign . Historians often depict it as the golden age in English history...
and into the Jacobean
Jacobean era
The Jacobean era refers to the period in English and Scottish history that coincides with the reign of King James VI of Scotland, who also inherited the crown of England in 1603 as James I...
and Caroline
Caroline era
The Caroline era refers to the era in English and Scottish history during the Stuart period that coincided with the reign of Charles I , Carolus being Latin for Charles...
periods that followed. (See: Children of the Chapel
Children of the Chapel
The Children of the Chapel were the boys with unbroken voices, choristers, who formed part of the Chapel Royal, the body of singers and priests serving the spiritual needs of their sovereign wherever they were called upon to do so....
; Children of Paul's
Children of Paul's
The Children of Paul's was the name of a troupe of boy actors in Elizabethan and Jacobean London. Along with the Children of the Chapel, the Children of Paul's were the most important of the companies of boy players that constituted a distinctive feature of English Renaissance theatre.St...
; Beeston's Boys
Beeston's Boys
Beeston's Boys was the popular and colloquial name of The King and Queen's Young Company, a troupe of boy actors of the Caroline period, active mainly in the years 1637–1642.-Origin:...
; King's Revels Children
King's Revels Children
The King's Revels Children or Children of the King's Revels were a troupe of actors, or playing company, in Jacobean era London, active in the 1607-9 period...
.)
Costs
The playing companies did not need to spend money on scenery, and their stage props were often basic (necessarily, since every company made a substantial portion of its income by touring, and some companies toured consistently with no home theatre). Their costs in costumes, however, were high: actors playing kings, cardinals, princes, and noblemen had to look the part. Companies had hundreds of pounds of value invested in their costumes, in "glaring satin suits" and "sumptuous dresses" — "cloaks in scarlet with gold laces and buttons, and in purple satin adorned with silver;" doublets of "carnation velvet, flame, ginger, red and green; and women's gowns in white satin and cloth of gold." In 1605, Edward Alleyn estimated that his share in the "apparell" of the Admiral's MenAdmiral's Men
The Admiral's Men was a playing company or troupe of actors in the Elizabethan and Stuart eras...
was worth £100 — and Alleyn was one of nine sharers in the company at the time. When a company got itself into financial difficulties, the members sometimes had to pawn their costumes, as Pembroke's Men
Pembroke's Men
The Earl of Pembroke's Men was an Elizabethan era playing company, or troupe of actors, in English Renaissance theatre. They functioned under the patronage of Henry Herbert, 2nd Earl of Pembroke. Early and equivocal mentions of a Pembroke's company reach as far back as 1575; but the company is...
did in the plague year of 1593.
In 1605 the actor Augustine Phillips
Augustine Phillips
Augustine Phillips was an Elizabethan actor who performed in troupes with Edward Alleyn and William Shakespeare. He was one of the first generation of English actors to achieve wealth and a degree of social status by means of his trade....
left specific pieces of his wardrobe to an apprentice in his last will and testament — including his "mouse-colored" velvet hose, purple cloak, white taffeta doublet, and black taffeta suit. To a modern sensibility, this may sound quaint and odd; but when "a doublet and hose of seawater green satin cost £3," the monetary value of Phillips' items was not negligible. Actors could face serious penalties for appropriating the costumes of their companies. [See Robert Dawes
Robert Dawes
Robert Dawes was an English actor of the Jacobean era. He is unique in the extant records of English Renaissance theatre, in that his individual employment contract with one of his acting companies has survived....
for an example.]
(The players could defray some of their costs in the used clothing market. Often, "eminent lords and knights at their decease" would leave articles of their finery to their servants — much of it "unseemly" for servingmen and women to wear. Such garments would end up the property of the actors.)
A second major cost lay in play scripts. In the years around 1600, playwrights could be paid as little as £6 to £7 per play (or about the price of two suits). Yet since the companies acted a constantly-changing repertory, they needed an abundant supply of plays. Philip Henslowe
Philip Henslowe
Philip Henslowe was an Elizabethan theatrical entrepreneur and impresario. Henslowe's modern reputation rests on the survival of his diary, a primary source for information about the theatrical world of Renaissance London...
's Diary records dozens of titles for the 1597–1603 period; when Worcester's Men
Worcester's Men
The Earl of Worcester's Men was an acting company in Renaissance England. An early formation of the company, wearing the livery of William Somerset, 3rd Earl of Worcester, is among the companies known to have toured the country in the mid-sixteenth century...
were setting up for their first London season in 1602, they purchased a dozen new plays from Henslowe's stable of house playwrights, to supplement their existing stock.
The sharers in the company also paid wages to their hired men and boys. Wages differed somewhat over time and from company to company and case to case; but the general average minimum was 1 shilling
Shilling
The shilling is a unit of currency used in some current and former British Commonwealth countries. The word shilling comes from scilling, an accounting term that dates back to Anglo-Saxon times where it was deemed to be the value of a cow in Kent or a sheep elsewhere. The word is thought to derive...
per man per day, the same wage as that of an artisan worker. Boys cost perhaps half as much, though they were often maintained under some version of an apprenticeship arrangement, which could vary widely in details.
Scheduling
Performances at the public theatres were generally allowed six days per week; the theatres were closed on Sundays and major religious holidays like Good FridayGood Friday
Good Friday , is a religious holiday observed primarily by Christians commemorating the crucifixion of Jesus Christ and his death at Calvary. The holiday is observed during Holy Week as part of the Paschal Triduum on the Friday preceding Easter Sunday, and may coincide with the Jewish observance of...
. Other restrictions were laid upon the players, some of which they evaded as consistently as they could. They were supposed to cease playing entirely during Lent
Lent
In the Christian tradition, Lent is the period of the liturgical year from Ash Wednesday to Easter. The traditional purpose of Lent is the preparation of the believer – through prayer, repentance, almsgiving and self-denial – for the annual commemoration during Holy Week of the Death and...
— but violated this stricture regularly. In the spring of 1592, for example, the Lord Strange's Men
Lord Strange's Men
Lord Strange's Men was an Elizabethan playing company, comprising retainers of the household of Ferdinando Stanley, Lord Strange . They are best known in their final phase of activity in the late 1580s and early 1590s...
played daily at the Rose Theatre
The Rose (theatre)
The Rose was an Elizabethan theatre. It was the fourth of the public theatres to be built, after The Theatre , the Curtain , and the theatre at Newington Butts The Rose was an Elizabethan theatre. It was the fourth of the public theatres to be built, after The Theatre (1576), the Curtain (1577),...
right through Lent. After 1623, companies circumvented the Lenten restriction through the simple expedient of paying bribes to Sir Henry Herbert, the Master of the Revels
Master of the Revels
The Master of the Revels was a position within the English, and later the British, royal household heading the "Revels Office" or "Office of the Revels" that originally had responsibilities for overseeing royal festivities, known as revels, and later also became responsible for stage censorship,...
.
One restriction that the players observed, one that was too serious to violate, was the prohibition enforced whenever bubonic plague
Bubonic plague
Plague is a deadly infectious disease that is caused by the enterobacteria Yersinia pestis, named after the French-Swiss bacteriologist Alexandre Yersin. Primarily carried by rodents and spread to humans via fleas, the disease is notorious throughout history, due to the unrivaled scale of death...
rose from endemic to epidemic levels. Through much of the English Renaissance period, the theatres were shut down when the death figures in the plague bill (the weekly mortality report for London and some suburban parishes) rose above a certain level. In 1604 that cut-off number was set at 30 per week; in 1607 it was raised to 40. A serious epidemic closed the theatres almost entirely from June 1592 through April 1594; 11,000 Londoners died of plague in 1593. (The plague tended to abate in the colder weather of winter; the theatres opened for short seasons during the winter months of those years.) 1603 was another bad plague year, with 30,000 deaths in London; the theatres were closed from March of 1603 to perhaps April of 1604.
Other serious epidemics caused theatre closures in 1625 (for eight months, to October) and from May 1636 to October 1637. These periods of closure were always traumatically difficult for the acting troupes; some survived by touring cities and towns outside of London...and some didn't survive at all.
The Elizabethan Age
The explosion of popular drama that began when James BurbageJames Burbage
James Burbage was an English actor, theatre impresario, and theatre builder in the English Renaissance theatre. He built The Theatre, the facility famous as the first permanent dedicated theatre built in England since Roman times...
built the first fixed and permanent venue for drama, The Theatre
The Theatre
The Theatre was an Elizabethan playhouse located in Shoreditch , just outside the City of London. It was the second permanent theatre ever built in England, after the Red Lion, and the first successful one...
, in 1576
1576 in literature
-Events:*James Burbage builds The Theatre, the first permanent public playhouse in London, ushering in the great age of Elizabethan drama.-New books:*Jean Boudin - Six livres de la République*George Pettie - A Petite Palace of Pettie His Pleasure...
was the one great step away from the medieval organizational model and toward the commercial theatre; but that evolution was, at best, a "work in progress" throughout the English Renaissance. Throughout this period, troupes of actors needed to maintain the patronage of a noble household. The prevailing legal system in England defined "masterless men" who travelled about the country as vagabonds, and subjected them to treatments of varying harshness. Local authorities tended to be more hostile than welcoming toward players; the Corporation of London, from the Lord Mayor and aldermen down, was famously hostile to acting troupes, as were the Puritans. Noble patronage was, at the very least, the legal fig leaf that allowed professional players to function in society.
In some cases, more so toward the end of the period, noble patronage was nothing more than that legal fig leaf; a company of actors was an independent entity, financially and otherwise. Conversely, some noblemen were beneficent patrons of their players. The Lords Hunsdon — Henry Carey, 1st Baron Hunsdon
Henry Carey, 1st Baron Hunsdon
Henry Carey, 1st Baron Hunsdon, of Hunsdon was an English nobleman.He was the son of Mary Boleyn, the sister of Anne Boleyn and also the mistress to King Henry VIII of England...
(c. 1524–96), and his son George Carey, 2nd Baron Hunsdon
George Carey, 2nd Baron Hunsdon
George Carey, 2nd Baron Hunsdon KG was the eldest son of Henry Carey, 1st Baron Hunsdon and Anne Morgan. His father was first cousin to Elizabeth I of England....
(1547–1603) — were valuable protectors of their own company, and, when they served in the office of Lord Chamberlain
Lord Chamberlain
The Lord Chamberlain or Lord Chamberlain of the Household is one of the chief officers of the Royal Household in the United Kingdom and is to be distinguished from the Lord Great Chamberlain, one of the Great Officers of State....
(1585–96 and 1597–1603 respectively), of English drama as a whole.
That company of Hunsdon's, known to posterity as The Lord Chamberlain's Men, was organized somewhat like a modern joint-stock commercial company (the concept of which was just beginning to evolve in this era) at its re-formation in 1594
1594 in literature
-Events:*The London theatres re-open in the spring, after two years of general inactivity due to the bubonic plague epidemic of 1592–94. Many of the actors who used to be Lord Strange's Men form a new organization, the Lord Chamberlain's Men, under the patronage of Henry Carey, 1st Baron...
, after the long plague closure. The company had a small number of partners or shareholders, who pooled their funds to pay expenses and in turn shared the profits, in what was largely a de-facto democratic way (at least for the sharers, if not for the hired men and apprentices they employed). Their main rivals, the Admiral's Men, suffered in contrast under a less ideal version of capitalist organization: Philip Henslowe
Philip Henslowe
Philip Henslowe was an Elizabethan theatrical entrepreneur and impresario. Henslowe's modern reputation rests on the survival of his diary, a primary source for information about the theatrical world of Renaissance London...
functioned more like a blend of big-business autocrat, landlord, and loan shark. He managed multiple companies of actors and built and owned several theatres, and controlled players (sharers included) and playwrights by doling out payments and loans. (The silver lining in this cloud is that Henslowe's surviving financial records provide a wealth of detailed knowledge about the theatre conditions in his era that is unparalleled by any other source.) Other companies varied between these extremes of organization. (Francis Langley
Francis Langley
Francis Langley was a theatre builder and theatrical producer in Elizabethan era London. After James Burbage and Philip Henslowe, Langley was the third significant entrepreneurial figure active at the height of the development of English Renaissance theatre.-Background:Langley was a goldsmith by...
, builder of the Swan Theatre
Swan Theatre
Swan Theatre may refer to:* The Swan , an Elizabethan playhouse* Swan Theatre , a theatre belonging to the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon, England...
, operated much as Henslowe did, though less successfully, and for a shorter time.)
Drama in the age of Elizabeth
Elizabeth I of England
Elizabeth I was queen regnant of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. Sometimes called The Virgin Queen, Gloriana, or Good Queen Bess, Elizabeth was the fifth and last monarch of the Tudor dynasty...
was at best an organized disorder; suppression of individual companies, and even the profession as a whole, for political reasons was not unknown. [See: The Isle of Dogs
The Isle of Dogs (play)
The Isle of Dogs is a play by Thomas Nashe and Ben Jonson which was performed in 1597. It was immediately suppressed, and no copy of it is known to exist.-The Play:...
.] Local residents sometimes opposed theatres in their neighborhoods. Individual companies of actors struggled and failed and recombined; tracking the changes has been the obsession of scholars and the bain of students.
Yet the drama was also enormously popular, from the Queen and Court down to the commonest of the common people; indeed, the odd polarity of the theatre audience in this period, with the High and the Low favoring the drama, and the middle class generally more hostile with the growth of Puritan sentiments, is a surprising and intriguing phenomenon. Theatres proliferated, especially (though not exclusively) in neighborhoods outside the city's walls and the Corporation's control — in Shoreditch
Shoreditch
Shoreditch is an area of London within the London Borough of Hackney in England. It is a built-up part of the inner city immediately to the north of the City of London, located east-northeast of Charing Cross.-Etymology:...
to the north, or the Bankside
Bankside
Bankside is a district of London, England, and part of the London Borough of Southwark. Bankside is located on the southern bank of the River Thames, east of Charing Cross, running from a little west of Blackfriars Bridge to just a short distance before London Bridge at St Mary Overie Dock to...
and Paris Garden in Southwark
Southwark
Southwark is a district of south London, England, and the administrative headquarters of the London Borough of Southwark. Situated east of Charing Cross, it forms one of the oldest parts of London and fronts the River Thames to the north...
, on the southern bank of the River Thames
River Thames
The River Thames flows through southern England. It is the longest river entirely in England and the second longest in the United Kingdom. While it is best known because its lower reaches flow through central London, the river flows alongside several other towns and cities, including Oxford,...
: the Curtain
Curtain Theatre
The Curtain Theatre was an Elizabethan playhouse located in Curtain Close, Shoreditch , just outside the City of London. It opened in 1577, and continued staging plays until 1622....
, the Rose
The Rose (theatre)
The Rose was an Elizabethan theatre. It was the fourth of the public theatres to be built, after The Theatre , the Curtain , and the theatre at Newington Butts The Rose was an Elizabethan theatre. It was the fourth of the public theatres to be built, after The Theatre (1576), the Curtain (1577),...
, the Swan
The Swan (theatre)
The Swan was a theatre in Southwark, London, England, built in 1595 on top of a previously standing structure, during the first half of William Shakespeare's career...
, the Fortune
Fortune Playhouse
The Fortune Playhouse was an historic theatre in London. It was located between Whitecross Street and the modern Golden Lane, just outside the City of London...
, the Globe
Globe Theatre
The Globe Theatre was a theatre in London associated with William Shakespeare. It was built in 1599 by Shakespeare's playing company, the Lord Chamberlain's Men, and was destroyed by fire on 29 June 1613...
, the Blackfrairs
Blackfriars Theatre
Blackfriars Theatre was the name of a theatre in the Blackfriars district of the City of London during the Renaissance. The theatre began as a venue for child actors associated with the Queen's chapel choirs; in this function, the theatre hosted some of the most innovative drama of Elizabeth and...
— a famous roster.
The Jacobean and Caroline Eras
King JamesJames I of England
James VI and I was King of Scots as James VI from 24 July 1567 and King of England and Ireland as James I from the union of the English and Scottish crowns on 24 March 1603...
, "VI and I," was passionately fond of drama; and theatrical activity at Court accelerated from the start of his reign. Consider the following figures.
In roughly the last decade of Elizabeth's reign, 1594–1603, there were 64 theatrical performances at Court, for an average of 6 or 7 a year:
| Chamberlain's Men | 32 |
| Admiral's Men | 20 |
| other adult companies | 5 |
| boys' companies | 7 |
Compare a total of 299 for a somewhat longer period in the first portion of James' reign, 1603–16, an average of more than 20 per year:
| King's Men | 177 |
| Prince Henry's Men | 47 |
| other adult companies | 57 |
| boys' companies | 18 |
The major companies acquired royal patronage: the Lord Chamberlain's Men
Lord Chamberlain's Men
The Lord Chamberlain's Men was a playing company for whom Shakespeare worked for most of his career. Formed at the end of a period of flux in the theatrical world of London, it had become, by 1603, one of the two leading companies of the city and was subsequently patronised by James I.It was...
became the King's Men
King's Men (playing company)
The King's Men was the company of actors to which William Shakespeare belonged through most of his career. Formerly known as The Lord Chamberlain's Men during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, it became The King's Men in 1603 when King James ascended the throne and became the company's patron.The...
, and the Admiral's Men
Admiral's Men
The Admiral's Men was a playing company or troupe of actors in the Elizabethan and Stuart eras...
became Prince Henry's Men, under the patronage of the King's eldest son. A company of Queen Anne's Men
Queen Anne's Men
Queen Anne's Men was a playing company, or troupe of actors, in Jacobean era London. -Formation:...
was built out of the pre-existent Oxford's and Pembroke's Men
Pembroke's Men
The Earl of Pembroke's Men was an Elizabethan era playing company, or troupe of actors, in English Renaissance theatre. They functioned under the patronage of Henry Herbert, 2nd Earl of Pembroke. Early and equivocal mentions of a Pembroke's company reach as far back as 1575; but the company is...
, companies that were largely devoted to touring the provinces in the previous reign. In 1608 a company was organized under the title of the King's second son, the eight-year-old Charles; this company, the Duke of York's Men, was called Prince Charles's Men
Prince Charles's Men
Prince Charles's Men was a playing company or troupe of actors in Jacobean and Caroline England.-The Jacobean era troupe:...
after Prince Henry unexpectedly died in 1612.
Companies continued to form, evolve, and dissolve in the early Jacobean era — the King's Revels Children
King's Revels Children
The King's Revels Children or Children of the King's Revels were a troupe of actors, or playing company, in Jacobean era London, active in the 1607-9 period...
, the Lady Elizabeth's Men
Lady Elizabeth's Men
The Lady Elizabeth's Men, or Princess Elizabeth's Men, was a company of actors in Jacobean London, formed under the patronage of King James I's daughter Princess Elizabeth. From 1618 on, the company was called The Queen of Bohemia's Men, after Elizabeth and her husband the Elector Palatine had...
; but by the mid-point of James' reign, around the time of Shakespeare's death in 1616
1616 in literature
The year 1616 in literature involved some significant events.-Events:*Nicolaus Copernicus' De revolutionibus is placed on the Index of Forbidden Books by the Roman Catholic Church....
, the dramatic scene had generally stabilized into four important companies. These were: the King's Men, at the Globe and Blackfriars Theatres; the Palsgrave's Men (formerly the Admiral's and Prince Henry's Men), at the Fortune; Prince Charles's Men
Prince Charles's Men
Prince Charles's Men was a playing company or troupe of actors in Jacobean and Caroline England.-The Jacobean era troupe:...
, at the Hope
Hope Theatre
The Hope Theatre was one of the theatres built in and around London for the presentation of plays in English Renaissance theatre, comparable to the Globe, the Curtain, the Swan, and other famous theatres of the era....
; and Queen Anne's Men
Queen Anne's Men
Queen Anne's Men was a playing company, or troupe of actors, in Jacobean era London. -Formation:...
, at the Red Bull Theatre
Red Bull Theatre
The Red Bull was a playhouse in London during the 17th century. For more than four decades, it entertained audiences drawn primarily from the northern suburbs, developing a reputation for rowdy, often disruptive audiences...
.
Theatrical evolution continued, sometimes tied to the lives and deaths of royal patrons. Queen Anne's Men disbanded with the death of Anne of Denmark
Anne of Denmark
Anne of Denmark was queen consort of Scotland, England, and Ireland as the wife of King James VI and I.The second daughter of King Frederick II of Denmark, Anne married James in 1589 at the age of fourteen and bore him three children who survived infancy, including the future Charles I...
in 1619; the accession of a new queen in 1625 saw the creation of Queen Henrietta's Men
Queen Henrietta's Men
Queen Henrietta's Men was an important playing company or troupe of actors in Caroline era London. At their peak of popularity, Queen Henrietta's Men were the second leading troupe of the day, after only the King's Men.-Beginnings:...
. Occasionally there were other new companies like Beeston's Boys
Beeston's Boys
Beeston's Boys was the popular and colloquial name of The King and Queen's Young Company, a troupe of boy actors of the Caroline period, active mainly in the years 1637–1642.-Origin:...
, and new theatres like the Salisbury Court
Salisbury Court Theatre
The Salisbury Court Theatre was a theatre in 17th-century London. It was located in the neighbourhood of Salisbury Court, which was formerly the London residence of the Bishops of Salisbury. Salibury Court was acquired by Richard Sackville in 1564; when Thomas Sackville was created Earl of Dorset...
. The two prolonged closings of the London theatres due to plague, in 1625 and 1636–37, caused significant disruption in the acting profession, with companies breaking apart, combining and re-combining, and switching theatres, in a dizzying confusion. (Only the King's Men were exempt.) Political suppressions also came along in the Stuart era, though they affected only single offending companies — until a general political suppression closed the theatres from 1642
1642 in literature
The year 1642 in literature involved some significant events.-Events:*May - John Milton marries Marie Powell.*September 2 - The theatres in London are closed by the Puritan government; the "lascivious mirth and levity" of stage plays are to "cease and be forborn" for the next eighteen years, during...
to 1660
1660 in literature
The year 1660 in literature involved some significant events.-Events:* January 1 - Samuel Pepys starts his diary.* February - John Rhodes reopens the old Cockpit Theatre in London, forms a company of young actors and begins to stage plays...
, and brought the age of English Renaissance theatre
English Renaissance theatre
English Renaissance theatre, also known as early modern English theatre, refers to the theatre of England, largely based in London, which occurred between the Reformation and the closure of the theatres in 1642...
to its end.