The Shakespeare Company, 1594-1642

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Cambridge University Press, Apr 15, 2004 - Drama - 339 pages
This is the first complete history of the theatre company, created in 1594, which in 1603 became the King's Men. Shakespeare was at the heart of the team of players, who with their successors ran an operation that lasted until the theatres closed in 1642. During these forty-eight years they staged all of Shakespeare's plays, a number of Ben Jonson's, those of Thomas Middleton and John Webster, and almost all of the Beaumont and Fletcher canon. Andrew Gurr provides a comprehensive history of the company's activities. A chapter on their finances explains the unique management system they adopted and two chapters study the fashions in their repertory and the complex relationship with their royal patrons. The six appendixes identify the 98 players who worked in the company, the 167 plays they are known to have owned and performed, as well as the key documents from the company's history. [from Publisher description].

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Contents

The plan of 1594
3
The team
14
The social eminence of the Blackfriars
31
The basis for success
33
The companys work
43
Stage practices and dress
47
The changing personality
51
Travelling
56
Royal support
176
The case of Richard II
180
Jacobean politics
182
The politics of Beaumont and Fletcher
189
Caroline interventions
192
Later political consequences of royalism
198
The afterlife
202
The immediate afterlife
203

Jigs
71
Music and musicians
80
Will money buy em? company finances
87
The ChamberlainsKings Mens company accounts
92
Housekeeper finances
113
Workes are playes the public repertory
122
The Shakespearean sequence
132
Later innovations
150
Along the way
163
Royal loyalties
169
The longer afterlife
212
The players
219
Documents about the company
249
The Sharers Papers
273
The repertory
283
Surviving playtexts
291
Court performances
304
Bibliography
310
Index
328
Copyright

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About the author (2004)

Andrew Gurr is Emeritus Professor of English at the University of Reading. As chief academic advisor, he was a key figure in the project to rebuild Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in London. His many publications include Shakespeare's Opposites, The Admiral's Company 1594-1625, The Shakespearean Stage 1574-1642, 4th edition (2009) and Playgoing in Shakespeare's London, 3rd edition (2004). Professor Gurr regularly contributes articles on Shakespeare to publications ranging from Shakespeare Survey to the Times Literary Supplement.

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