Acting Companies and their Plays in Shakespeare's London

by Keenan, Siobhan

• ISBN13: 9781408146675
• ISBN10: 1408146673
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2014-07-03
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Arden Shakespeare

Summary

Acting Companies and their Plays in Shakespeare's London explores the intimate and dynamic relationship between acting companies and playwrights in this seminal era in English theatre history.

Siobhan Keenan's analysis includes chapters on the traditions and workings of contemporary acting companies, playwriting practices, stages and staging, audiences and patrons, each illustrated with detailed case studies of individual acting companies and their plays, including troupes such as Lady Elizabeth's players, ‘Beeston's Boys' and the King's Men and works by Shakespeare, Jonson, Middleton, Brome and Heywood.

We are accustomed to focusing on individual playwrights: Acting Companies and their Plays in Shakespeare's London makes the case that we also need to think about the companies for which dramatists wrote and with whose members they collaborated, if we wish to better understand the dramas of the English Renaissance stage.

Author Biography

Siobhan Keenan is a Senior Lecturer at De Montfort University, Leicester, UK.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
Textual Note
List of Abbreviations
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: The Acting Companies
Chapter 3: Playwrights and Playwriting
Chapter 4: Stages and Staging
Chapter 5: Audiences
Chapter 6: Patrons and Patronage
Epilogue
Bibliography