The Shakespeare Company, 1594–1642

This is the first complete history of the theatre company, created in 1594, which in 1603 became the King’s Men. Shakespeare was at the heart of the team of players, who with their successors ran an operation that lasted until the theatres closed in 1642. During these forty-eight years they staged all of Shakespeare’s plays, a number of Ben Jonson’s, those of Thomas Middleton and John Webster, and almost all of the Beaumont and Fletcher canon. Andrew Gurr provides a comprehensive history of the company’s activities. A chapter on their finances explains the unique management system they adopted and two chapters study the fashions in their repertory and the complex relationship with their royal patrons. The six appendixes identify the 98 players who worked in the company, the 168 plays they are known to have owned and performed, as well as the key documents from the company’s history.