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Holland's Leaguer (play)
''Holland's Leaguer'' is a Caroline stage play, a comedy written by Shackerley Marmion. It premiered onstage in 1631 and was first published in 1632. The play was a popular success and a scandal in its own day—scandalous because it dealt with a well-known London brothel, Holland's Leguer. "Leaguer" In its literal sense, the term "leaguer" refers to a military encampment; Shakespeare uses the word in this original sense in '' All's Well That Ends Well'', Act III, scene 6, line 26: "the leaguer of the adversaries." By the 1630s the word had become a slang term for a whorehouse, as here in this play, or in the 1640 play ''The Knave in Grain''. Performance ''Holland's Leaguer'' was acted in December 1631 by Prince Charles's Men at the Salisbury Court Theatre. It ran for six straight performances – which was highly unusual in the repertory system in which playing companies then operated, with a different play every day. The greatest theatrical success of the era, ''A Game at ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blackfriars Theatre
Blackfriars Theatre was the name given to two separate theatres located in the former Blackfriars Dominican priory in the City of London during the Renaissance. The first theatre began as a venue for the Children of the Chapel Royal, child actors associated with the Queen's chapel choirs, and who from 1576 to 1584 staged plays in the vast hall of the former monastery. The second theatre dates from the purchase of the upper part of the priory and another building by James Burbage in 1596, which included the Parliament Chamber on the upper floor that was converted into the playhouse. The Children of the Chapel played in the theatre beginning in the autumn of 1600 until the King's Men took over in 1608. They successfully used it as their winter playhouse until all the theatres were closed in 1642 when the English Civil War began. In 1666, the entire area was destroyed in the Great Fire of London. First theatre Blackfriars Theatre was built on the grounds of the former Dominic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Shirley
James Shirley (or Sherley) (September 1596 – October 1666) was an English dramatist. He belonged to the great period of English dramatic literature, but, in Charles Lamb's words, he "claims a place among the worthies of this period, not so much for any transcendent genius in himself, as that he was the last of a great race, all of whom spoke nearly the same language and had a set of moral feelings and notions in common." His career of play writing extended from 1625 to the suppression of stage plays by Parliament in 1642. Biography Early life Shirley was born in London and was descended from the Shirleys of Warwick, the oldest knighted family in Warwickshire. He was educated at Merchant Taylors' School, London, St John's College, Oxford, and St Catharine's College, Cambridge, where he took his BA degree in or before 1618. His first poem, ''Echo, or the Unfortunate Lovers'' was published in 1618; no copy of it is known, but it is probably the same as 1646's ''Narcissus ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Susan Baskervile
Susan Shore Browne Greene Baskervile (died 1648), or Baskerville, was one of the most influential and significant women involved in English Renaissance theatre, as theatre investor, litigant, and wife, widow, and mother of actors. Her first husband was Robert Browne (Elizabethan actor), Robert Browne (died 1603), actor and manager of the Inn-yard theatre, Boar's Head Theatre. She was his second wife. Her five children by Browne included William Browne, who would act with Queen Anne's Men and Prince Charles's Men in the years between 1616 and his death in 1634. Her second husband was the famous clown Greene's Tu Quoque#Greene, Thomas Greene, who performed with Queen Anne's Men and who died young in August 1612. (They had a daughter, Honor.) Susan married her third husband, James Baskervile, in June 1613; he was a bigamist who abandoned her and fled to Ireland in 1617. Thomas Greene's last will and testament, dated 25 July 1612, left his share in Queen Anne's Men, worth 80 pounds, to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Browne (Elizabethan Actor)
Robert Browne (died October 1603) was an English actor of the Elizabethan era, and the owner and manager of the Boar's Head Theatre. He was also part of an enduring confusion in the study of English Renaissance theatre. Two Robert Brownes The relevant documents of English Renaissance drama contain numerous references to "Robert Browne." Early twentieth-century scholars, like E. K. Chambers and Edwin Nunzeger, assumed that these records referred to a single individual. Later scholars, principally Charles Jasper Sisson and Herbert Berry, argued persuasively that two separate individuals had been confused and conflated into one. Or two at least: "There were obviously at least two and could easily have been three or more Robert Brownes who had to do with the companies and playhouses of the time." To distinguish between two Robert Brownes, the earliest years of the seventeenth century are key. One Robert Browne was busy running the Boar's Head Theatre in 1601 through 1603; another R ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 relati ... [...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 centur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gentlewoman
A gentlewoman (from the Latin ''gentilis'', belonging to a ''gens'', and English 'woman') in the original and strict sense is a woman of good family, analogous to the Latin ''generosus'' and ''generosa''. The closely related English word "gentry" derives from the Old French ''genterise'', ''gentelise'', with much of the meaning of the French ''noblesse'' and the German ''Adel'', but without the strict technical requirements of those traditions, such as quarters of nobility. By association with gentleman, the word can refer to: *A woman of gentle birth or high social position; *A woman attending a great lady (as, for example, the character in William Shakespeare's ''Macbeth'' called only 'Gentlewoman', who attends Lady Macbeth). This might be a court appointment as the female equivalent to a valet de chambre. *A woman with good manners and high standards of behaviour. At court From the time of Queen Mary I and Queen Elizabeth I, the title ''Gentlewoman of Her Majesty's Bedcha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Andrew Cane
Andrew Cane ( fl. 1602–1650) — also Kayne, Kene, Keine, and other variants — was a comic actor in late Jacobean and Caroline era London. In his own generation he was a leading comedian and dancer, and one of the famous and popular performers of his time. Beginnings A child with the surname "Keane" (no Christian name recorded) was baptized on 2 March 1589; this might have been the actor/goldsmith. In 1602, Cane began a ten-year apprenticeship to his older brother Richard, who had finished his own apprenticeship and established himself as a goldsmith in 1600. The younger Cane won his "freedom" in the goldsmiths' guild in 1611. Cane married and began a family in 1612. Jigging clown Cane's stage career had begun by 1622, when he moved from Lady Elizabeth's Men (at the Cockpit) to the Palsgrave's Men (at the Fortune). After 1631 he was a "chiefe" member of the Prince Charles's Men (II) troupe, and received their payments for their performances at Court. One of hi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ellis Worth
Ellis Worth (c. 1587 – 1659), or Woorth, was a noted English actor in the Jacobean and Caroline eras. He was a leading member of two important companies, Queen Anne's Men and Prince Charles's Men. Biography Nothing is known of Worth's origins or early life, or the start of his career; he was with the Queen Anne's company by 1615, and continued with the troupe until it dissolved in 1623. The paucity of the extant historical record means that little is known of the roles he played; he was most likely the "Ellis" who played a Lord in Robert Daborne's '' The Poor Man's Comfort'' around 1617. After 1623, Worth was a member of what is usually called the Company of the Revels at the Red Bull Theatre, and sometimes simply the Red Bull company; little is known of their activities. When Richard Gunnell built his Salisbury Court Theatre in 1629, he needed a company to act there. He brought in the new or second version of Prince Charles's Men. Worth was an original member and a "shar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Renegado
''The Renegado, or The Gentleman of Venice'' is a late Literature in English#Jacobean literature, Jacobean stage play, a tragicomedy written by Philip Massinger and first published in 1630 in literature, 1630. The play has attracted critical attention for its treatment of cultural conflict between Christian Europe and Muslim North Africa. Massinger based the plot of his play on a novel by Miguel de Cervantes titled ''Los Baños de Argel,'' which had been printed in 1615 in literature, 1615. Performance and publication ''The Renegado'' was licensed for performance by Sir Henry Herbert (Master of the Revels), Henry Herbert, the Master of the Revels, on 17 April 1624 in literature, 1624. It was acted at the Cockpit Theatre by the Lady Elizabeth's Men; when that troupe was merged or re-organized into Queen Henrietta's Men in the following year, 1625 in literature, 1625, the play remained in their repertory. The 1630 book size, quarto was printed by Augustine Matthews for the booksell ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Picture (Massinger Play)
''The Picture'' is a Caroline era stage play, a tragicomedy written by Philip Massinger, and first published in 1630. The play was licensed for performance by Sir Henry Herbert, the Master of the Revels, on 8 June 1629; it was acted by the King's Men at both of their theatres, the Globe and the Blackfriars. The play was published in quarto the following year; Massinger dedicated the work to the members of the Inner Temple. The play was popular and highly regarded in its own era; in 1650 Richard Washington wrote an elegy on Massinger in his own copy of the quarto of ''The Picture.'' Massinger's sources for his plot were the 28th novel in Volume 2 of ''The Palace of Pleasure'' (1567) by William Painter, and an anonymous English translation of ''The Theatre of Honour and Knighthood'' (1623) by André Favyn. Cast The 1630 quarto contains an unusually full cast list of the original King's Men's production of the play: The list is informative on the state of the King's Men co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
