Playing Companies
The playing companies listed below appear because they have been mentioned in MoEML Encyclopedia articles. As we add more articles to the site, this list will inevitably
grow.
If you would like to enrich an entry for a playing company or add a new company to
this list, contact us.
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The King and Queen’s Young Company
Beeston’s Boys
Beeston’s Boys was a playing company of boy actors in early modern London. The group was formed in 1637 under a royal warrant from King Charles I and Queen Henrietta Maria, but was colloquially known as Beeston’s Boys after actor and theatre impresario Christopher Beeston. The company lasted until the closure of the theatres in September 1642. -
Chapel Children
The Chapel Children was a playing company of boy actors in early modern London. In the 1580s, they were also known as Oxford’s Boys. In London, they performed at the first Blackfriars Theatre. See Gurr 228. -
The Children of the Paul’s
Children of Paul’s
The Children of Paul’s was a playing company of boy actors in early modern London. The company was comprised of boy choristers from St. Paul’s Cathedral. They performed mainly at court, though they did also play at the first Blackfriars Theatre. -
Blackfriars Children
Blackfriars Children was a playing company of boy actors in early modern London, known by various names. The company staged plays by Beaumont, Chapman, Fletcher, Jonson, Marston, and Middleton between 1603-13. The company was known at different times as the Blackfriars Boys, Revels Children, Children of the Queen’s Revels, Children of the Chapel, and the Children of Whitefriars. See Gurr 287-87. -
The King’s Men
The King’s Men was a playing company in early modern London. During the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, the group had been known as The Lord Chamberlain’s Men after its then patron, Henry Carey, Lord Hunsdon. It was re-named in 1603 when King James I took over as patron soon after acceding to the throne. It is famous for being the company to which William Shakespeare belonged for most of his career. -
The King’s Revels Children
The King’s Revels Children (also known as the Children of the King’s Revels) was a playing company of boy actors in early modern London. It appears to have emerged in early 1607, and its history is closely linked to the Blackfriars Boys after 1609. See Gurr 361-62, 365. -
The Lady Elizabeth’s Men
The Lady Elizabeth’s Men was a playing company in early modern London. The group was formed in 1611 and was named after Princess Elizabeth, daughter of King James I and Anne of Denmark. After she was crowned queen of Bohemia in 1618, the company changed its name to The Queen of Bohemia’s Men. -
Oxford’s Men
Oxford’s Men was a playing company in early modern London. -
Prince Charles’s Company
Prince Charles’s Company or Prince Charles’s Men was a playing company in early modern London. The group was formed in 1608 as the Duke of York’s Men after Charles, who was then Duke of York and the second son of King James I and Anne of Denmark. When Charles’s elder brother, Prince Henry, died in 1612, the company gradually became known as Prince Charles’s Company. Andrew Gurr identifies this company as Prince Charles’s Company (I) to distinguish it from the company established in 1631 after the birth of the future Charles II, also called Prince Charles’s Company, but usually referred to by theatre scholars as Prince Charles’s Company (II) (395). -
Queen Anne’s Men
Queen Anne’s Men was a playing company in early modern London. The group was formed in 1603 out of Worcester’s Company (1562-1603) and named after its patron, Anne of Denmark, consort of King James I. When she died in 1619, the company continued as The Players of the Revels, but were often simply called the Red Bull Company (1619-25). -
Queen Henrietta’s Men
Queen Henrietta’s Men was a playing company in early modern London. The group was formed in 1625 and was named after Henrietta Maria of France, consort of King Charles I. The company lasted until the closure of the theatres in September 1642.
References
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Citation
Gurr, Andrew. The Shakespearian Playing Companies. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1996.This item is cited in the following documents:
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Citation
Gurr, Andrew. The Shakespearean Stage 1574-1642. 4th ed. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2009.This item is cited in the following documents:
Cite this page
MLA citation
McLean-Fiander, Kim.
Playing Companies.The Map of Early Modern London, edited by Janelle Jenstad, U of Victoria, 20 Jun. 2018, mapoflondon.uvic.ca/playing_companies.htm.
Chicago citation
McLean-Fiander, Kim.
Playing Companies.The Map of Early Modern London. Ed. Janelle Jenstad. Victoria: University of Victoria. Accessed June 20, 2018. http://mapoflondon.uvic.ca/playing_companies.htm.
APA citation
McLean-Fiander, K. 2018. Playing Companies. In J. Jenstad (Ed), The Map of Early Modern London. Victoria: University of Victoria. Retrieved from http://mapoflondon.uvic.ca/playing_companies.htm.
RIS file (for RefMan, EndNote etc.)
Provider: University of Victoria Database: The Map of Early Modern London Content: text/plain; charset="utf-8" TY - ELEC A1 - McLean-Fiander, Kim ED - Jenstad, Janelle T1 - Playing Companies T2 - The Map of Early Modern London PY - 2018 DA - 2018/06/20 CY - Victoria PB - University of Victoria LA - English UR - http://mapoflondon.uvic.ca/playing_companies.htm UR - http://mapoflondon.uvic.ca/xml/standalone/playing_companies.xml ER -
RefWorks
RT Web Page SR Electronic(1) A1 McLean-Fiander, Kim A6 Jenstad, Janelle T1 Playing Companies T2 The Map of Early Modern London WP 2018 FD 2018/06/20 RD 2018/06/20 PP Victoria PB University of Victoria LA English OL English LK http://mapoflondon.uvic.ca/playing_companies.htm
TEI citation
<bibl type="mla"><author><name ref="#MCFI1"><surname>McLean-Fiander</surname>, <forename>Kim</forename></name></author>. <title level="a">Playing Companies</title>. <title level="m">The Map of Early Modern London</title>, edited by <editor><name ref="#JENS1"><forename>Janelle</forename> <surname>Jenstad</surname></name></editor>, <publisher>U of Victoria</publisher>, <date when="2018-06-20">20 Jun. 2018</date>, <ref target="http://mapoflondon.uvic.ca/playing_companies.htm">mapoflondon.uvic.ca/playing_companies.htm</ref>.</bibl>Personography
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Janelle Jenstad
JJ
Janelle Jenstad, associate professor in the department of English at the University of Victoria, is the general editor and coordinator of The Map of Early Modern London. She is also the assistant coordinating editor of Internet Shakespeare Editions. She has taught at Queen’s University, the Summer Academy at the Stratford Festival, the University of Windsor, and the University of Victoria. Her articles have appeared in the Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, Early Modern Literary Studies, Elizabethan Theatre, Shakespeare Bulletin: A Journal of Performance Criticism, and The Silver Society Journal. Her book chapters have appeared (or will appear) in Performing Maternity in Early Modern England (Ashgate, 2007), Approaches to Teaching Othello (Modern Language Association, 2005), Shakespeare, Language and the Stage, The Fifth Wall: Approaches to Shakespeare from Criticism, Performance and Theatre Studies (Arden/Thomson Learning, 2005), Institutional Culture in Early Modern Society (Brill, 2004), New Directions in the Geohumanities: Art, Text, and History at the Edge of Place (Routledge, 2011), and Teaching Early Modern English Literature from the Archives (MLA, forthcoming). She is currently working on an edition of The Merchant of Venice for ISE and Broadview P. She lectures regularly on London studies, digital humanities, and on Shakespeare in performance.Roles played in the project
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Kim McLean-Fiander
KMF
Director of Pedagogy and Outreach, 2015–present; Associate Project Director, 2015–present; Assistant Project Director, 2013-2014; MoEML Research Fellow, 2013. Kim McLean-Fiander comes to The Map of Early Modern London from the Cultures of Knowledge digital humanities project at the University of Oxford, where she was the editor of Early Modern Letters Online, an open-access union catalogue and editorial interface for correspondence from the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. She is currently Co-Director of a sister project to EMLO called Women’s Early Modern Letters Online (WEMLO). In the past, she held an internship with the curator of manuscripts at the Folger Shakespeare Library, completed a doctorate at Oxford on paratext and early modern women writers, and worked a number of years for the Bodleian Libraries and as a freelance editor. She has a passion for rare books and manuscripts as social and material artifacts, and is interested in the development of digital resources that will improve access to these materials while ensuring their ongoing preservation and conservation. An avid traveler, Kim has always loved both London and maps, and so is particularly delighted to be able to bring her early modern scholarly expertise to bear on the MoEML project.Roles played in the project
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Joey Takeda
JT
Programmer, 2018-present; Junior Programmer, 2015 to 2017; Research Assistant, 2014 to 2017. Joey Takeda is an MA student at the University of British Columbia in the Department of English (Science and Technology research stream). He completed his BA honours in English (with a minor in Women’s Studies) at the University of Victoria in 2016. His primary research interests include diasporic and indigenous Canadian and American literature, critical theory, cultural studies, and the digital humanities.Roles played in the project
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Francis Beaumont is mentioned in the following documents:
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Henry Carey
Henry Carey Lord Chamberlain Lord Hundson
(b. 4 March 1526, d. 23 July 1596)Courtier and administrator. Patron of Shakespeare’s playing company, the Lord Chamberlain’s Men. First cousin of Queen Elizabeth I.Henry Carey is mentioned in the following documents:
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Charles I
Charles Stuart I King of England, Scotland, and Ireland
(b. 1600, d. 1649)King of England, Scotland, and Ireland.Charles I is mentioned in the following documents:
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Charles II
Charles II King of England, Scotland, and Ireland
(b. 1630, d. 1685)King of England, Scotland, and Ireland.Charles II is mentioned in the following documents:
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George Chapman is mentioned in the following documents:
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Elizabeth I
Elizabeth Tudor I Queen of England and Ireland
(b. 7 September 1533, d. 24 March 1603)Queen of England and Ireland.Elizabeth I is mentioned in the following documents:
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Princess Elizabeth Stuart
Princess Elizabeth Stuart Queen of Bohemia
(b. 1596, d. 1662)Daughter of James I and Anne of Denmark. Sister of Charles I and Prince Henry Frederick. In 1613, she married Frederick V, count palatine of the Rhine and elector of the Holy Roman empire, 1596—1632, and became queen of Bohemia and electress palatine.Princess Elizabeth Stuart is mentioned in the following documents:
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Queen Henrietta Maria
(b. 1609, d. 1669)Queen of England, Scotland, and Ireland. Consort of King Charles I of England.Queen Henrietta Maria is mentioned in the following documents:
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Prince Henry Frederick
Prince Henry Frederick Stuart
(b. 19 February 1594, d. 6 November 1612)Prince of Wales and eldest son of King James I and Queen Anne of Denmark. Brother of Charles I and Princess Elizabeth Stuart. Died of typhoid fever at the age of eighteen.Prince Henry Frederick is mentioned in the following documents:
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James VI and I
King James Stuart VI and I
(b. 1566, d. 1625)King of Scotland, England, and Ireland.James VI and I is mentioned in the following documents:
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Ben Jonson is mentioned in the following documents:
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John Marston is mentioned in the following documents:
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Thomas Middleton is mentioned in the following documents:
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William Shakespeare is mentioned in the following documents:
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Christopher Beeston
(b. between 1579 and 1580, d. 1638)Actor and theatre entrepreneur. Founder of the Cockpit Theatre.Christopher Beeston is mentioned in the following documents:
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John Fletcher is mentioned in the following documents:
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Anne of Denmark
Anne of Denmark Queen of England, Scotland, and Ireland
(b. 12 December 1574, d. 2 March 1619)Queen of England, Scotland, and Ireland. Consort of James VI ad I. Daughter of Frederick II of Denmark and Sophie of Mecklenburg-Güstrow. Sister of Christian IV of Denmark, Elizabeth of Denmark, and Ulric of Denmark.Anne of Denmark is mentioned in the following documents:
Locations
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Blackfriars Theatre
The history of the two Blackfriars theatres is long and fraught with legal and political struggles. The story begins in 1276, when King Edward I gave to the Dominican order five acres of land.Blackfriars Theatre is mentioned in the following documents:
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St. Paul’s Cathedral
St. Paul’s Cathedral was—and remains—an important church in London. In 962, while London was occupied by the Danes, St. Paul’s monastery was burnt and raised anew. The church survived the Norman conquest of 1066, but in 1087 it was burnt again. An ambitious Bishop named Maurice took the opportunity to build a new St. Paul’s, even petitioning the king to offer a piece of land belonging to one of his castles (Times 115). The building Maurice initiated would become the cathedral of St. Paul’s which survived until the Great Fire of 1666.St. Paul’s Cathedral is mentioned in the following documents:
