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4 unusual facts about Blackfriars Theatre


Blackfriars Theatre

Together with its competitor, Paul's Children, the Blackfriars company produced plays by a number of the most talented young dramatists of Jacobean literature, among them Thomas Middleton, Ben Jonson, George Chapman, and John Marston.

As Burbage built, however, a petition from the residents of the wealthy neighbourhood persuaded the Privy Council to forbid playing there; the letter was signed even by Lord Hunsdon, patron of Burbage's company and Richard Field, the Blackfriars printer and hometown neighbour of William Shakespeare.

In 1608, Burbage's company (by this time, the King's Men) took possession of the theatre, which they still owned, this time without objections from the neighbourhood.

Green room

One story is that London's Blackfriars Theatre (1599) included a room behind the scenes; this room happened to be painted green; here the actors waited to go on stage; and it was called "the green room."


Francis Beaumont

In 1609, however, the two collaborated on Philaster, which was performed by the King's Men at the Globe Theatre and at Blackfriars.

Playing company

Theatres proliferated, especially (though not exclusively) in neighborhoods outside the city's walls and the Corporation's control — in Shoreditch to the north, or the Bankside and Paris Garden in Southwark, on the southern bank of the River Thames: the Curtain, the Rose, the Swan, the Fortune, the Globe, the Blackfrairs — a famous roster.


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