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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 The troupe was formed in early 1637, under a royal warrant, by the theatre manager and impresario Christopher Beeston, during a time of disorder and reorganisation in the theatre profession; the London playhouses had been closed since the summer of 1636 because of bubonic plague. The creation of a company of boy actors was a return to a practice of the early 17th century, the era of companies like the Children of Paul's and the Children of the Chapel. Those companies, while controversial in their time, had been effective at developing and educating young talent, to the eventual benefit of the adult companies and the theatrical profession as a whole. Beeston's formation of the Young Company was an attempt to recover that training function – as well as to provide effective drama while paying relat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Boy Player
Boy player refers to children who performed in Medieval and English Renaissance playing companies. Some boy players worked for the adult companies and performed the female roles as women did not perform on the English stage in this period. Others worked for children's companies in which all roles, not just the female ones, were played by boys. Children's companies In the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods, troupes appeared that were composed entirely of boy players. They are famously mentioned in Shakespeare's ''Hamlet'', in which a group of travelling actors has left the city due to rivalry with a troupe of "little eyases" (II, ii, 339); the term "eyas" means an unfledged hawk. The children's companies grew out of the choirs of boy singers that had been connected with cathedrals and similar institutions since the Middle Ages. (Similar boy choirs exist to this day.) Thus the choir attached to St. Paul's Cathedral in London since the 12th century was in the 16th century ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Lacy (playwright)
John Lacy (c. 1615? – 17 September 1681) was an English comic actor and playwright during the English Restoration, Restoration era. In his own time he gained a reputation as "the greatest comedian of his day" and was the favourite comic of King Charles II of England, Charles II. Life Lacy was born in or near Doncaster; in 1631 he became an apprentice of John Ogilby, when Ogilby was functioning as what was then called a "dancing master"—roughly the equivalent of a modern dance teacher and choreographer. Lacy's stage career began by 1639, when he was a member of Beeston's Boys. Lacy joined the royalist forces in the English Civil War, and was commissioned an officer (lieutenant and quartermaster). After the English Interregnum period, once Charles II returned to the throne and the London theatres re-opened, Lacy became an actor with the newly formed King's Company. Lacy quickly evolved into a popular comedian; Samuel Pepys admired and enjoyed his work, as he recorded ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Rowley
William Rowley (c. 1585 – February 1626) was an English Jacobean dramatist, best known for works written in collaboration with more successful writers. His date of birth is estimated to have been c. 1585; he was buried on 11 February 1626 in the graveyard of St James's, Clerkenwell in north London. (An unambiguous record of Rowley's death was discovered in 1928, but some authorities persist in listing his year of death as 1642.) Life and work Rowley was an actor-playwright who specialised in playing clown characters (that is, characters whose function is to provide low comedy). He must also have been a large man, since his forte lay specifically in fat-clown roles. He played the Fat Bishop in Thomas Middleton's '' A Game at Chess'', and Plumporridge in the same author's ''Inner Temple Masque''. He also wrote fat-clown parts for himself to play: Jaques in ''All's Lost by Lust'' (a role "personated by the Poet", the 1633 quarto states), and Bustopha in ''The Maid in the Mill'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
All's Lost By Lust
''All's Lost by Lust'' is a Jacobean tragedy by William Rowley. A "tragedy of remarkable frankness and effectiveness," "crude and fierce," it was written between 1618 and 1620. Publication The play was first published in 1633 (seven years after Rowley's death), in a quarto published by the bookseller Thomas Harper. This 1633 quarto was the only edition of the play in Rowley's era; the drama would not be reprinted until the nineteenth century. Performance ''All's Lost by Lust'' was first performed by Rowley's playing company, Prince Charles' Men, and later by the Lady Elizabeth's Men and Queen Henrietta's Men. The play was popular in its own period and was revived during the Restoration; Samuel Pepys saw George Jolly's production at the Red Bull Theatre on 23 March 1661. In his famous Diary, Pepys described the production as "poorly done" with "much disorder" — when a boy singer performed a song poorly, the music master "fell about his ears and beat him so, that it put the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Master Of The Revels
The Master of the Revels was the holder of a position within the English, and later the British, royal household, heading the "Revels Office" or "Office of the Revels". The Master of the Revels was an executive officer under the Lord Chamberlain. Originally he was responsible for overseeing royal festivities, known as ''revels'', and he later also became responsible for stage censorship, until this function was transferred to the Lord Chamberlain in 1624. However, Henry Herbert, the deputy Master of the Revels and later the Master, continued to perform the function on behalf of the Lord Chamberlain until the English Civil War in 1642, when stage plays were prohibited. The office continued almost until the end of the 18th century, although with rather reduced status. History The Revels Office has an influential role in the history of the English stage. Among the expenses of the royal Wardrobe we find provision made for ''tunicae'' and ''viseres'' (shirts and hats) in 1347 for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Henry Herbert (Master Of The Revels)
Sir Henry Herbert (baptized 7 July 1594 – 27 April 1673) was Master of the Revels to both King Charles I and King Charles II, as well as a politician during both reigns. Biography Baptised in July 1594, Herbert was the sixth son of Magdelen Herbert and Richard Herbert of Montgomery Castle. Richard was a younger brother of Edward Herbert, 1st Baron Herbert of Cherbury and the poet George Herbert, both former members of the Parliament of England, and older brother of naval officer Thomas Herbert. Their family was related to the Herbert Earls of Pembroke, prominent figures in English government and society throughout the Jacobean and Caroline era. Edward Herbert was ambassador in Paris, and Henry joined him in 1619 and became involved in the case of Piero Hugon and the jewels of Anne of Denmark. Herbert's role as Master of the Revels involved reading and licensing plays and supervising all kinds of public entertainment. Officially, Herbert became Master of the Revels i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marshalsea
The Marshalsea (1373–1842) was a notorious prison in Southwark, just south of the River Thames. Although it housed a variety of prisoners, including men accused of crimes at sea and political figures charged with sedition, it became known, in particular, for its incarceration of the poorest of London's debtors. Over half the population of England's prisoners in the 18th century were in jail because of debt. Run privately for profit, as were all English prisons until the 19th century, the Marshalsea looked like an Oxbridge college and functioned as an extortion racket. Debtors in the 18th century who could afford the prison fees had access to a bar, shop and restaurant, and retained the crucial privilege of being allowed out during the day, which gave them a chance to earn money for their creditors. Everyone else was crammed into one of nine small rooms with dozens of others, possibly for years for the most modest of debts, which increased as unpaid prison fees accumulated. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Court Beggar
''The Court Beggar'' is a Caroline era stage play written by Richard Brome. It was first performed by the acting company known as Beeston's Boys at the Cockpit Theatre. It has sometimes been identified as the seditious play, performed at the Cockpit in May 1640, which the Master of the Revels moved to have suppressed. However, the play's most recent editor, Marion O'Connor, dates it to "no earlier than the end of November 1640, and perhaps in the first months of 1641". Publication and performance The play was first published during the Interregnum, in the 1653 Brome collection ''Five New Plays'', issued by the stationers Humphrey Moseley, Richard Marriot, and Thomas Dring. The title page provides the incorrect date of 1632 for the play's first performance – perhaps an error, or perhaps a deliberate misdirection regarding a still-controversial subject. The title page also specifies that the play was "Acted at the Cock-pit, by his Majesties Servants," that is by The King and Q ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Brome
Richard Brome ; (c. 1590? – 24 September 1652) was an English dramatist of the Caroline era. Life Virtually nothing is known about Brome's private life. Repeated allusions in contemporary works, like Ben Jonson's '' Bartholomew Fair'', indicate that Brome started out as a servant of Jonson, in some capacity. Scholars have interpreted the allusions to mean that Brome may have begun as a menial servant but later became a sort of secretary and general assistant to the older playwright. A single brief mention of his family's need seems to show that he had a wife and children and struggled to support them. He may have had some experience as a professional actor: a 1628 warrant lists him as a member of the Queen of Bohemia's Men. Yet he had already started writing for the stage by this date. An early collaboration, ''A Fault in Friendship'' (now lost) was licensed in 1623 for Prince Charles's Men; a 1629 solo Brome effort, ''The Lovesick Maid'' (also lost), was a success for t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles I Of England
Charles I (19 November 1600 – 30 January 1649) was King of England, Scotland, and Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649. He was born into the House of Stuart as the second son of King James VI of Scotland, but after his father inherited the English throne in 1603, he moved to England, where he spent much of the rest of his life. He became heir apparent to the kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland in 1612 upon the death of his elder brother, Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales. An unsuccessful and unpopular attempt to marry him to the Spanish Habsburg princess Maria Anna culminated in an eight-month visit to Spain in 1623 that demonstrated the futility of the marriage negotiation. Two years later, he married the Bourbon princess Henrietta Maria of France. After his 1625 succession, Charles quarrelled with the English Parliament, which sought to curb his royal prerogative. He believed in the divine right of kings, and was determined to govern acco ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
King's Revels Men
The King's Revels Men or King's Revels Company was a playing company or troupe of actors in seventeenth-century England. In the confusing theatre nomenclature of that era, it is sometimes called the ''second'' King's Revels Company, to distinguish it from an earlier troupe with the same title that was active in the 1607-9 period. Since the earlier group was a company of boy actors, they are alternatively referred to as the King's Revels Children, while the later troupe is termed the King's Revels Men. The King's Revels Men received a royal charter on 27 February 1615. They spent their early years touring the cities and towns outside London, though they later took up residence in the city. By the second quarter of the century they were acting at the Fortune Theatre and at the Salisbury Court Theatre (the latter in 1630–31 and 1633–36). They played Thomas Randolph's ''The Muses' Looking-Glass'' in the summer of 1630, and James Shirley's ''Love in a Maze'' in 1632 – ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prince Charles's Men
Prince Charles's Men (known as the Duke of York's Men from 1608 to 1612) was a playing company or troupe of actors in Jacobean and Caroline England. The Jacobean era troupe The company was formed in 1608 as the Duke of York's Men, under the titular patronage of King James' second son, the eight-year-old Charles (1600–49), then the Duke of York. Upon the death of Charles's elder brother Prince Henry in 1612, the company became Prince Charles's Men. They played mainly in the provinces for the first two years of their existence, but in 1610 they received a renewed royal patent that authorized them to play in London, "in such usual houses as themselves shall provide." Seven actors are listed in the patent: John Garland, William Rowley, Thomas Hobbes, Robert Dawes, Joseph Taylor, John Newton, and Gilbert Reason. Rowley was their dramatist and clown; Joseph Taylor would be their leading man in future years, and then fill the same function with the King's Men, when he replaced th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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