The Earl of Worcester's Men was an acting company in
Renaissance
The Renaissance ( , ) is a Periodization, period of history and a European cultural movement covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and sur ...
England
England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...
. An early formation of the company, wearing the livery of
William Somerset, 3rd Earl of Worcester, is among the companies known to have toured the country in the mid-sixteenth century. A later iteration of the company toured through the 1580s and '90s; little is known about its activities, though in 1583 it included the sixteen-year-old
Edward Alleyn
Edward Alleyn (; 1 September 156621 November 1626) was an England, English actor who was a major figure of the Elizabethan theatre and founder of the College of God's Gift in Dulwich.
Early life
Alleyn was born on 1 September 1566 in Bishop ...
, at the start of his illustrious career.
By the start of the seventeenth century,
Edward Somerset, 4th Earl of Worcester
Edward Somerset, 4th Earl of Worcester, KG, Earl Marshal (c. 1550 – 3 March 1628) was an English aristocrat. He was an important advisor to King James I (James VI of Scots), serving as Lord Privy Seal.
Career
He was the only son of thre ...
was moving up into the higher levels of the late-Elizabethan social and political structure; in April 1601 he became the Queen's Master of the Horse. It was to add to his prestige that Worcester wanted to bring his players to London. Through the 1590s, only two companies of adult players, the
Lord Chamberlain's Men
The Lord Chamberlain's Men was an English company of actors, or a "playing company" (as it then would likely have been described), for which William Shakespeare wrote during most of his career. Richard Burbage played most of the lead roles, includ ...
and the
Admiral's Men
The Admiral's Men (also called the Admiral's company, more strictly, the Earl of Nottingham's Men; after 1603, Prince Henry's Men; after 1612, the Elector Palatine's Men or the Palsgrave's Men) was a playing company or troupe of actors in the Eli ...
, had been officially allowed in London. Worcester was able to make his company the third, with a license of the
Privy Council as of 31 March 1602. The company was initially supposed to play only at the
Boar's Head Inn; but by August of that year they were negotiating with
Philip Henslowe
Philip Henslowe ( – 6 January 1616) was an Elizabethan theatrical entrepreneur and impresario. Henslowe's modern reputation rests on the survival of his diary, a primary source for information about the theatrical world of Renaissance London. ...
. Soon they were playing at his
Rose Theatre
The Rose was an Elizabethan playhouse, built by theatre entrepreneur Philip Henslowe in 1587. It was the fifth public playhouse to be built in London, after the Red Lion in Whitechapel (1567), The Theatre (1576) and the Curtain (1577), both i ...
, which the Admiral's Men had vacated when they moved to the
Fortune
Fortune may refer to:
General
* Fortuna or Fortune, the Roman goddess of luck
* Luck
* Wealth
* Fate
* Fortune, a prediction made in fortune-telling
* Fortune, in a fortune cookie
Arts and entertainment Film and television
* ''The Fortune'' (19 ...
in 1600. (Henslowe did business with the members of Worcester's Men as he had with the Admiral's: many company members were soon in debt to him for small loans.)
During their first year with Henslowe, Worcester's Men purchased a dozen plays from Henslowe's stable of regular house dramatists:
Thomas Dekker,
Wentworth Smith,
John Day,
Henry Chettle,
Richard Hathwaye, and even a young
John Webster
John Webster (c. 1578 – c. 1632) was an English Jacobean dramatist best known for his tragedies '' The White Devil'' and ''The Duchess of Malfi'', which are often seen as masterpieces of the early 17th-century English stage. His life and car ...
. Most have not survived. The fee for a play was normally £6, sometimes a pound or two higher; Dekker got an extra 10 shillings for one of his solo works.
[Chambers, Vol. 2, p. 227.]
In this incarnation, Worcester's Men included, at one time or another,
John Lowin
John Lowin (baptized 9 December 1576 – buried 18 March 1659 or 16 March 1669) was an English actor.
Early life
Born in St Giles-without-Cripplegate, London, Lowin was the son of a tanner. Like Robert Armin, he was apprenticed to a goldsmit ...
, actor/playwright
Thomas Heywood
Thomas Heywood (early 1570s – 16 August 1641) was an English playwright, actor, and author. His main contributions were to late Elizabethan and early Jacobean theatre. He is best known for his masterpiece ''A Woman Killed with Kindness'', a ...
and the famous clown
Will Kempe.
Christopher Beeston joined Worcester's Men in August 1602, after leaving the Lord Chamberlain's Men; another player from that company,
John Duke, made the same move sometime in 1602. And in the latter part of that year Worcester's absorbed Oxford's Men, another company that had previously been active mostly as a touring troupe. In February 1603 they played ''
A Woman Killed with Kindness
''A Woman Killed with Kindness'' is an early seventeenth-century stage play, a tragedy written by Thomas Heywood. Acted in 1603 and first published in 1607, the play has generally been considered Heywood's masterpiece, and has received the mo ...
,'' often called Heywood's best play.
The troupe did not achieve a degree of success equal to that of the Lord Chamberlain's Men at the
Globe
A globe is a spherical Earth, spherical Model#Physical model, model of Earth, of some other astronomical object, celestial body, or of the celestial sphere. Globes serve purposes similar to maps, but, unlike maps, they do not distort the surface ...
or the Admiral's Men at the new Fortune; yet early in the reign of
James I James I may refer to:
People
*James I of Aragon (1208–1276)
* James I of Sicily or James II of Aragon (1267–1327)
* James I, Count of La Marche (1319–1362), Count of Ponthieu
* James I, Count of Urgell (1321–1347)
*James I of Cyprus (1334� ...
, the company received royal patronage and became
Queen Anne's Men
Queen Anne's Men was a playing company, or troupe of actors, in Jacobean-era London. In their own era they were known colloquially as the Queen's Men — as were Queen Elizabeth's Men and Queen Henrietta's Men, in theirs.
Formation
The group ...
.
Notes
References
*
Chambers, E. K. ''The Elizabethan Stage.'' 4 Volumes, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1923.
*
Halliday, F. E. ''A Shakespeare Companion 1564–1964.'' Baltimore, Penguin, 1964.
{{authority control
English early modern theatre companies
1603 disestablishments