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unusual facts about James Burbage


James Burbage

He was apprenticed in London to the trade of joiner, and must have persevered through his apprenticeship and taken up his freedom, as in 1559 he was referred to as a joiner twice in the St Stephen's register.


Playing company

The explosion of popular drama that began when James Burbage built the first fixed and permanent venue for drama, The Theatre, in 1576 was the one great step away from the medieval organizational model and toward the commercial theatre; but that evolution was, at best, a "work in progress" throughout the English Renaissance.


see also

Cuthbert Burbage

James Burbage then became Lord Hunsdon's man, and from 1583 on Hunsdon's Men, known as the Lord Chamberlain's Men from 1585, performed at the Theatre.

Leicester's Men

When James Burbage and his brother-in-law John Brayne built The Theatre, the first successful commercial public theatre in England, in 1576, Leicester's was the company that occupied its stage when performances began in the autumn of that year.

The Theatre

The Theatre opened in the autumn of 1576, possibly as a venue for Leicester's Men, the acting company of Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester of which James Burbage was a member.