The Business of Playing: The Beginnings of the Adult Professional Theater in Elizabethan LondonA Choice Outstanding Academic Book for 1994 Possessing only quasi-amateur standing in the early 1500s, London's adult professional theater troupes became the basis for an enterprise that by the end of the century was to provide livelihoods for many stage players and businessmen and their families. William Ingram here reconstructs the economic and social history of this remarkable growth through the eyes of the participants themselves--actors, managers, and entrepreneurs, including such important figures as Jerome Savage, John Brayne, Henry Laneman, and James Burbage. |
Contents
Evidence and Narrative | 13 |
Stage Players in London | 31 |
PLACES TO BEGIN | 63 |
Stepney 1567 | 92 |
1576 AND ITS NARRATIVES | 115 |
Jerome Savage 1576 | 150 |
The Theater 1576 | 185 |
12 | 191 |
31 | 206 |
15223 | 213 |
The Curtain 1576 | 219 |
Playing Places Players Play Texts | 239 |
Common terms and phrases
activity appear bond Brayne's building Burbage and Brayne Burbage's Carpenters century Chambers chapter Christ's Hospital Church City claimed CLRO common companies of players costumes councilors Court of Aldermen Curtain debt documents Downell Downell's Duttons E. K. Chambers earl earlier early economic entry evidence ex parte Brayne ex parte Burbage Fleay grocer haue Henry Laneman Henslowe Henslowe's Hickes's howse Hunningborne Hyde interludes James Burbage Jerome Savage John Brayne John Garland later lawsuit lease Leicester's license lived London Lurklane married matter Mile End narrative Newington Butts parish patrons perhaps period playes playhouse at Newington playing companies pounds premises Privy Council queen's R. H. Tawney records Red Lion Richard Hickes Robert Burbage Robert Myles royal Savage's seems sewer Shakespeare Shoreditch Singer stage players stage plays Stepney suggests survived theater historians Thomas Tunstall tyme vnto vpon Wallace Warwick's William yeoman