Henslowe was originally a dyer by trade, and was unusual among theatre managers of the day in never having been an actor. He built the Rose Theatre in Southwark in 1587, presumably as an extension of his earlier financial enterprises, which included starch making and money-lending. His career as a theatre manager appears to have taken off in 1592, when his stepdaughter married Edward Alleyn the actor. Henslowe's primary connection to his theatres was financial and administrative rather than artistic; he took a percentage of the ticket sales, and his account books for 1593-1603 (known as his 'Diary') also record payments for licences, costumes, and to playwrights. His 'Inventory' (of costumes, properties etc.) of 1598 also survives.

Five plays appear as being written by Porter in Henslowe's records between Dec. 1596 and May 1599, and he was mentioned in Mere's Palladis Tamia (1598) as a leading playwright. The only play of his which survives is The two angry women of Abingdon (1599).

The son of a London dyer, Chettle was initially apprenticed to Thomas East, a stationer, in 1577. He edited Robert Greene 's posthumous Greene's Groatsworth of Wit (1592). Although it is unclear when Chettle began to write plays, by 1598 Meres could include him among 'the best for comedy' in his Palladis Tamia . Entries relating to plays wholly or partly by him appear in Henslowe's diary on many occasions between Feb. 1598 and May 1603. The best-known of these plays is probably The Tragedy of Hoffman (1602).