The Queen's Men and Their Plays

McMillin, Scott; MacLean, Sally-Beth

doi:10.2307/3509282

Cited by 43 publications

(4 citation statements)

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“…Beyond Shakespeare, the research literature is sparser, but some studies have been dedicated to Shakespeare's contemporaries. Important contributions include studies on militarism and drama in the 1590s such as Breight (1996), Pugliatti (2014), and Taunton (2017) and on specific companies McMillin and MacLean (1998) and Ostovich et al (2009).…”

Section: State Of the Artmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The Chorus's patriotic digression to contemporary politics (which does not necessarily express the moral of the play) has disturbed modern commentators but is at the very least reminiscent of Tudor theatre's capacity for propaganda. Openly militant and anti‐Catholic messages are found in a number of plays, not least in the Queen's Men's repertoire (McMillin & MacLean, 1998, chap. 2), or even in titles like Alarum for London ( c .1599), a play about the siege of Antwerp.…”

Section: From Visual To Acoustic Imitationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“… 4 4 Nonetheless, one of the most staunchly militaristic companies, the Queen'sMen, remained predominantly a touring company and thus maintained a middle position between early and late Tudor dramaturgy (see McMillin & MacLean, 1998). …”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“… 7 7 Real violence also occurred with touring companies. In Norwich in 1583, players from the Queen's Men left the stage sword in hand to confront a disturbing spectator and were tried and punished for killing an innocent bystander in the ensuing brawl (McMillin & MacLean, 1998, 42). …”

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confidence: 99%

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‘Two Armies flye in…’: Battle scenes in English Renaissance theatre

Dahl

2023

Orbis Litterarum

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One of the most spectacular characteristics of English Renaissance theatre is the propensity for battle scenes. Between 1576 and 1616, battle scenes appear in a third of all surviving plays and, judging from the titles, the frequency may have been even higher in the lost plays. The popularity of battle scenes is indicative both of early modern fascination with history as spectacle and of the imminence of contemporary warfare, especially in the final decades of the reign of Elizabeth I. Based on quantitative studies, this paper offers a survey of the evolution and proliferation of battle scenes in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, and I will critically assess the general assumption that battle scenes eventually waned from the early modern stage as a consequence of the ascent to the throne of the peace‐seeking James I. For reasons to be discussed, it is quite unlikely that James's doctrine on foreign politics had any significant effect on the staging of war in theatre.

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Section: State Of the Artmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: From Visual To Acoustic Imitationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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‘Two Armies flye in…’: Battle scenes in English Renaissance theatre

Dahl

2023

Orbis Litterarum

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Charting the Landscape of Loss

2021

Shakespeare and Lost Plays

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Why does a company's repertorial context matter? Because Shakespeare's plays were performed alongside the plays (lost and extant) in the commercial companies' repertories and because Shakespeare was writing his own plays to fit within that repertory context. Some of these must also have been the plays in which Shakespeare, as an actor, was performing. The diary of Philip Henslowe, theatrical impresario and manager of the Rose and Fortune playhouses, is indispensable as a source of relevant historical information on the repertories in London. Henslowe's theatrical accounts pertain to performances by multiple companies between -,  and his expenditure on behalf of the Admiral's and the Earl of Worcester's Men between -. The data about performances, takings, inventory lists and expenditure on costumes and playbooks is the most detailed account of company commerce from the period. In this chapter, I consider the finances of the Admiral's, Strange's and Sussex's Men as preserved in Henslowe's diary, with a view to comparing lost and extant plays in terms of the highest number of performances, the highest average takings and the single most profitable performances. If there is any truth to the suggestion made by older generations of scholars that lost plays were mere filler and that their failure to appear in print is an index of their perceived quality, I would expect to see such valuations reflected in the three financial measures I explore, but the results do not support such a conclusion. Instead, one of the key claims I make is that lost plays performed significantly better (financially) and were of greater value to a commercial company than scholars have traditionally acknowledged.Unfortunately, Henslowe only documents the plays of Shakespeare's company, the Lord Chamberlain's Men, for a brief period of eleven days in June  (see Chapter ). To appreciate the nature and extent of loss in  I.e. the Queen's Men, the Lord Strange's Men, the Earl of Sussex's Men, the Lord Admiral's Men, the Earl of Pembroke's Men and even the Lord Chamberlain's Men for a brief period in .

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Work and Play on the Shakespearean Stage

Rutter

2008

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Time and again, early modern plays show people at work: shoemaking, grave-digging, and professional acting are just some of the forms of labour that theatregoers could have seen depicted on stage in 1599 and 1600. Tom Rutter demonstrates how such representations were shaped by the theatre's own problematic relationship with work: actors earned their living through playing, a practice that many considered idle and illegitimate, while plays were criticised for enticing servants and apprentices from their labour. As a result, the drama of Shakespeare's time became the focal point of wider debates over what counted as work, who should have to do it, and how it should be valued. This book describes changing beliefs about work in the sixteenth century, and shows how different ways of conceptualising the work of the governing class inform Shakespeare's histories. It identifies important contrasts between plays written for the adult and child repertories.

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The Queen's Men and Their Plays

Cited by 43 publications

References 0 publications

‘Two Armies flye in…’: Battle scenes in English Renaissance theatre

‘Two Armies flye in…’: Battle scenes in English Renaissance theatre

Charting the Landscape of Loss

Work and Play on the Shakespearean Stage

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