Richard Gunnell (
fl. 1613 – 1634) was an actor, playwright, and theatre manager in
Jacobean and
Caroline era
The Caroline era is the period in English and Scottish history named for the 24-year reign of Charles I (1625–1649). The term is derived from ''Carolus'', the Latin for Charles. The Caroline era followed the Jacobean era, the reign of Charles's ...
London. He is best remembered for his role in the founding of the
Salisbury Court Theatre
The Salisbury Court Theatre was a theatre (structure), theatre in 17th-century London. It was in the neighbourhood of Salisbury Court, which was formerly the London residence of the Bishop of Salisbury, Bishops of Salisbury. Salisbury Court was ...
.
Actor and playwright
Nothing is known of Gunnell's early life or the first phase of his stage career. He acted with the
Admiral's Men
The Admiral's Men (also called the Admiral's company, more strictly, the Earl of Nottingham's Men; after 1603, Prince Henry's Men; after 1612, the Elector Palatine's Men or the Palsgrave's Men) was a playing company or troupe of actors in the El ...
, then called the Palsgrave's Men, from 1613 to 1622. When the Palsgrave's Men received their renewed charter and their new name on 4 January 1613, Gunnell was already a sharer in the company. Despite the scantiness of the documentary record for the Palsgrave's troupe, Gunnell can be seen moving up into a managerial responsibility over his years with the company. In the 1613 charter he is listed twelfth of the fourteen sharers. On the company's 1618 lease of the
Fortune Playhouse
Fortune may refer to:
General
* Fortuna or Fortune, the Roman goddess of luck
* Luck
* Wealth
* Fortune, a prediction made in fortune-telling
* Fortune, in a fortune cookie
Arts and entertainment Film and television
* ''The Fortune'' (1931 film ...
from owner
Edward Alleyn
Edward "Ned" Alleyn (; 1 September 156621 November 1626) was an English actor who was a major figure of the Elizabethan theatre and founder of the College of God's Gift in Dulwich.
Early life
Alleyn was born on 1 September 1566 in Bishopsga ...
, Gunnell is fourth of ten. And when the company leased the rebuilt Fortune in 1622, Gunnell is listed first.
The fire that destroyed the Fortune on 9 December 1621 also wiped out the costumes and play manuscripts of the Palsgrave's Men. In the difficult period that followed, Gunnell appears to have left acting to concentrate of management. He also made a venture at writing plays. His comedy ''The Hungarian Lion'' appeared in 1623, and his ''The Way to Content All Women, or How a Man May Please His Wife'' followed in 1624. Neither of his plays has survived.
Salisbury Court
Gunnell partnered with William Blagrave, Sir
Henry Herbert's assistant in the office of the
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. ...
, to establish the Salisbury Court Theatre in 1629. The Salisbury Court was one of the so-called "private" theatres of the era, comparable to the
Blackfriars Blackfriars, derived from Black Friars, a common name for the Dominican Order of friars, may refer to:
England
* Blackfriars, Bristol, a former priory in Bristol
* Blackfriars, Canterbury, a former monastery in Kent
* Blackfriars, Gloucester, a f ...
or the
Cockpit
A cockpit or flight deck is the area, usually near the front of an aircraft or spacecraft, from which a Pilot in command, pilot controls the aircraft.
The cockpit of an aircraft contains flight instruments on an instrument panel, and the ...
, as opposed to the "public" theatres like the Fortune or the
Globe
A globe is a spherical model of Earth, of some other celestial body, or of the celestial sphere. Globes serve purposes similar to maps, but unlike maps, they do not distort the surface that they portray except to scale it down. A model globe ...
that catered to a broad audience. Since the private theatres were prestigious and lucrative – their minimum ticket price was five or six times higher than the public theatres' penny – the move from public to private made business sense, and Gunnell was not the first theatre manager to pursue this course. (
Christopher Beeston
Christopher Beeston (c. 1579 – c. 15 October 1638) was a successful actor and a powerful theatrical impresario in early 17th century London. He was associated with a number of playwrights, particularly Thomas Heywood.
Early life
Little is kno ...
, manager of the public
Red Bull Theatre
The Red Bull was an inn-yard conversion erected in Clerkenwell, London operating in the 17th century. For more than four decades, it entertained audiences drawn primarily from the City and its suburbs, developing a reputation over the years for r ...
, built the private Cockpit in 1616–17.)
Along with their new theatre, Gunnell and Blagrave intended to start their own new acting company, called the Children of the Revels. Their plan was to organize a troupe of
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 ...
s, comparable to the boys' companies of the previous generation, the
Children of the Chapel
The Children of the Chapel are the boys with unbroken voices, choristers, who form 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. They were overseen ...
and the
Children of Paul's
The Children of Paul's was the name of a troupe of boy actors in Elizabethan
The Elizabethan era is the epoch in the Tudor period of the history of England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603). Historians often depict it a ...
. (Christopher Beeston would make the same effort, though more fortunately, when he started
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, ...
in 1637.) The Blagrave/Gunnell troupe was not a success, since an outbreak of
bubonic plague
Bubonic plague is one of three types of plague caused by the plague bacterium (''Yersinia pestis''). One to seven days after exposure to the bacteria, flu-like symptoms develop. These symptoms include fever, headaches, and vomiting, as well a ...
forced the London theatres to close in 1630 – though
Stephen Hammerton, the popular young actor who found fame with the
King's Men, emerged from it.
Business difficulties apparently tempted Gunnell to try to sell his theatrical enterprise; but he and the buyer, Christopher Babham, could not agree on terms and soon went to court over their disagreement. Gunnell remained in the theatre, and brought the re-organized
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 titu ...
(a troupe that included some of his old Palsgrave's compatriots) into the Salisbury Court in 1631.
End
Gunnell was a longtime resident of the London parish of St. Giles without
Cripplegate
Cripplegate was a gate in the London Wall which once enclosed the City of London.
The gate gave its name to the Cripplegate ward of the City which straddles the line of the former wall and gate, a line which continues to divide the ward into tw ...
; the parish records note the christenings and burials of several Gunnell children between 1613 and 1631. He "died late in 1634 or 1635." Gunnell died intestate, leaving a widow, Elizabeth, and two daughters, Margaret and Anne. Elizabeth later married a John Robinson, who may have been the actor of that name; Margaret married actor
William Wintershall
William Wintershall (died July 1679), also Wintersall or Wintersell, was a noted seventeenth-century English actor. His career spanned the difficult years of mid-century, when English theatres were closed from 1642 to 1660, during the English Civi ...
.
[Edwin Nunzeger, ''A Dictionary of Actors and of Others Associated with the Representation of Plays in England before 1642'', New Haven, Yale University Press, 1929; p. 399.]
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gunnell, Richard
17th-century English male actors
English male stage actors
Year of birth unknown