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Cockpit Theatre
The Cockpit was a theatre in London, operating from 1616 to around 1665. It was the first theatre to be located near Drury Lane. After damage in 1617, it was named The Phoenix. History The original building was an actual cockpit; that is, a staging area for cockfights. Most likely a round building with a peaked roof, about in diameter, it was erected under Henry VIII, c. 1530-32, as part of a gaming complex. Records indicate a major restoration in 1581-82 and renovations in 1589-90, 1602-3, and 1608-9 (the latter under the supervision of John Best, "cockmaster" to Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales, King James I's eldest son and heir). In August 1616, Christopher Beeston acquired the lease to the building and converted it to an indoor playhouse. In March 1617, rioting apprentices attempted to destroy the playhouse, probably out of anger that their favorite plays had been removed from the Red Bull outdoor amphitheater, which charged only one penny for admission, to this more ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Inigo Jones Theatre
Inigo is a masculine given name deriving from the Castilian rendering (Íñigo) of the medieval Basque name Eneko. Ultimately, the name means "my little (man)". While mostly seen among the Iberian diaspora, it also gained a limited popularity in the United Kingdom. Early traces of the name Eneko go back to Roman times, when the Bronze of Ascoli included the name forms ''Enneges'' and ''Ennegenses'' among a list of Iberian horsemen granted Roman citizenship in 89 B.C.E. In the early Middle Ages, the name appears in Latin, as ''Enneco'', and Arabic, as ''Wannaqo'' (ونقه) in reports of Íñigo Arista (c. 790–851 or 852), a Basque who ruled Pamplona. It can be compared with its feminine form, Oneca. It was frequently represented in medieval documents as Ignatius (Spanish "Ignacio"), which is thought to be etymologically distinct, coming from the Roman name Egnatius, from Latin ''ignotus'', meaning "unknowing", or from the Latin word for fire, ''ignis''. The familiar Ignati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Palace Of Whitehall
The Palace of Whitehall – also spelled White Hall – at Westminster was the main residence of the English monarchs from 1530 until 1698, when most of its structures, with the notable exception of Inigo Jones's Banqueting House of 1622, were destroyed by fire. Henry VIII moved the royal residence to Whitehall after the old royal apartments at the nearby Palace of Westminster were themselves destroyed by fire. Although the Whitehall palace has not survived, the area where it was located is still called Whitehall and has remained a centre of the British government. Whitehall was at one time the largest palace in Europe, with more than 1,500 rooms, before itself being overtaken by the expanding Palace of Versailles, which was to reach 2,400 rooms. At its most expansive, the palace extended over much of the area bordered by Northumberland Avenue in the north; to Downing Street and nearly to Derby Gate in the south; and from roughly the elevations of the current buildings fac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
London Theatre Closure 1642
On 2 September 1642, just after the First English Civil War had begun, the Long Parliament ordered the closure of all London theatres. The order cited the current "times of humiliation" and "sad and pious solemnity", a zeitgeist incompatible with "public stage-plays", which were representative of "lascivious Mirth and Levity". The closure was the culmination of the rising anti-theatrical sentiment among Puritans, and along with William Prynne's '' Histriomastix'' (1633), its text was the most notorious attack on theatre in English history. On 24 January 1643, the actors responded to the suppression of the theatre by writing a pamphlet to Parliament titled "The Actors remonstrance or complaint for the silencing of their profession, and banishment from their severall play-houses", in which they also state, "wee have purged our stages of all obscene and scurrilous jests". It was unclear to contemporary audiences whether the intent of the Act was a permanent ban or a temporary res ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Davenant
Sir William Davenant (baptised 3 March 1606 – 7 April 1668), also spelled D'Avenant, was an English poet and playwright. Along with Thomas Killigrew, Davenant was one of the rare figures in English Renaissance theatre whose career spanned both the Caroline and Restoration eras and who was active both before and after the English Civil War and during the Interregnum. Davenant was reportedly a godson of fellow playwright William Shakespeare, and he wrote a memorial ode for his godfather when he was only 12-years-old. Later in life, he was rumored to be Shakespeare's illegitimate son. In 1638, Davenant replaced Ben Jonson as the new Poet Laureate. Davenant was a Royalist in the English Civil War and was sentenced to death by the Parliamentarians in 1650. His life was reportedly spared by the intervention of a fellow writer, John Milton. Biography Early life Davenant is believed to have been born in late February, 1606 in Oxford, the son of Jane Shepherd Davenant and John Da ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Beeston
William Beeston (1606? – 1682) was an English actor and theatre manager, the son and successor to the more famous Christopher Beeston. Early phase William was brought up in the theatrical world of his father; he became an actor, and also his father's assistant in managing the Cockpit and Red Bull theatres and their associated companies of actors, including the company of younger players colloquially known as Beeston's Boys. Upon his father's death in 1638, William Beeston inherited their theatrical enterprise – though he managed it with much less success than his father had. On 5 May 1640 he was thrown into the Marshalsea Prison for a Beeston's Boys' play, acted the day before, that gave offence to Sir Henry Herbert, the Master of the Revels. The play was most likely '' The Court Beggar'' by Richard Brome, which satirized several members of Queen Henrietta Maria's circle of favourites, including Sir John Suckling and Sir William Davenant (though Brome's '' The Queen and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Boy Player
A boy player was a male child or teenager who performed in Medieval theatre, Medieval and English Renaissance theatre, English Renaissance playing companies. Some boy players worked for adult companies and performed the female roles, since women were not allowed to perform on the English stage during 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 era, Elizabethan and Jacobean era, Jacobean periods, troupes appeared that were composed entirely of boy players. They are famously mentioned in William Shakespeare, 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 exis ... [...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 rela ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Queen Henrietta's Men
Queen Henrietta's Men was an important playing company or troupe of actors of the Caroline era in London, England. At their peak of popularity, Queen Henrietta's Men were the second leading troupe of the day, after only the King's Men. Beginnings The company was formed in 1625, at the start of the reign of King Charles I of England, by theatrical impresario Christopher Beeston under royal patronage of the new queen, Henrietta Maria. They were sometimes called the Queen's Majesty's Comedians or other variations on their name. The company was founded after an eight-month closure of the London theatres due to bubonic plague (March to October, 1625). The Lady Elizabeth's Men, then called the Queen of Bohemia's Men, had been resident at Beeston's Cockpit Theatre up to the plague closing, and provided the foundation of the new organization. Success Theatre manager Beeston had had several different companies acting in his Cockpit Theatre since opening it in 1617; it was with Queen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 their brief and disastrous flirtation with the crown of Bohemia. (In the winter of 1618–19, the two had their brief reign as the King and Queen of Bohemia, to start the Thirty Years' War.) The company received its royal patent on 27 April 1611; it is thought to have been composed largely of former child actors from the children's troupes – the Children of the Chapel and the Children of Paul's — who were now grown to manhood. They may have started out playing at the Swan Theatre. On 29 August 1611, the company signed a bond with Philip Henslowe; they would rely on Henslowe for financing and would in the future act at Henslowe's new theatre, the Hope. Soon after their incept ... [...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 t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anne Of Denmark
Anne of Denmark (; 12 December 1574 – 2 March 1619) was the wife of King James VI and I. She was List of Scottish royal consorts, Queen of Scotland from their marriage on 20 August 1589 and List of English royal consorts, Queen of England and Ireland from the union of the Scottish and English crowns on 24 March 1603 until Death and funeral of Anne of Denmark, her death in 1619. The second daughter of King Frederick II of Denmark and Sophie of Mecklenburg-Güstrow, Anne married James at age 14. They had three children who survived infancy: Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales, who predeceased his parents; Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Bohemia, Princess Elizabeth, who became Queen of Bohemia; and James's future successor, Charles I of England, Charles I. Anne demonstrated an independent streak and a willingness to use factional Scottish politics in her conflicts with James over the custody of Prince Henry and his treatment of her friend Barbara Ruthven, Beatrix Ruthven. Anne app ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
King's Men (playing Company)
The King's Men was an acting company in England to which William Shakespeare (1564–1616) belonged for most of his career. Formerly known as the Lord Chamberlain's Men during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, they became the King's Men in 1603 when King James I ascended the throne and became the company's patron. The royal patent of 19 May 1603 which authorised the King's Men company named the following players, in this order: Lawrence Fletcher, William Shakespeare, Richard Burbage, Augustine Phillips, John Heminges, Henry Condell, William Sly, Robert Armin, Richard Cowley, "and the rest of their associates...." The nine cited by name became Grooms of the Chamber. On 15 March 1604, each of the nine men named in the patent was supplied with four and a half yards of red cloth for the coronation procession. Chronologically typed To 1610 In their first winter season, between December 1603 and February 1604 the company performed eight times at Court and eleven times in their s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
