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3 unusual facts about playing company


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.

That company of Hunsdon's, known to posterity as The Lord Chamberlain's Men, was organized somewhat like a modern joint-stock commercial company (the concept of which was just beginning to evolve in this era) at its re-formation in 1594, after the long plague closure.

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.


John Shank

John Shank (also spelled Shanke or Shanks) (died January 1636) was an actor in English Renaissance theatre, a leading comedian in the King's Men during the 1620s and 1630s.

King's Men personnel

King's Men personnel were the people who worked with and for the Lord Chamberlain's Men and the King's Men (for all practical purposes a single continuous theatrical enterprise) from 1594 to 1642 (and after).

Sir Clyomon and Sir Clamydes

That playing company originated in 1583; if the play is as old as some commentators judge it, the company's version must have been a revival.

William Heminges

Heminges sold off his shares from 1630-1634, primarily to John Shank, comedian with the King's Men.


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