The Shakespearian Playing Companies [Hardcover]

This ground-breaking study is the first history of the professional acting companies who brought drama to London in Shakespeare's time. Gurr draws on the most up-to-date research to provide a general history of company development from the 1560s, when the first of the major companies belonging to great lords began regularly to offer their plays at court and in London, to 1642, when by Act of Parliament they were closed down. He offers detailed and fascinating accounts of each of the forty companies that played in London during the period, including Shakespeare's company, The Chamberlain's/King's Men. His fascinating and authoritative volume will take its place as an indispensable reference work and the authoritative history for all scholars and students of Renaissance--and Shakespearean--drama.

Extensive, authoritative, and lucid...conveying a great deal of significant information.....Will influence the field substantially. --Studies in English Literature

This book represents a major contribution to our knowledge of the London stage, and is destined to remain the authoritative study of its subject for many years to come. --Sixteenth Century Journal

Gurr's wide knowledge of the field makes the book fascinating reading. He relates changes in the repertory to shifts in management or makeup of a particular company. His learned assumptions about the reasons for certain repertories, such as increasing social divisiveness among audiences or the preferences of a given patron, are both useful and persuasive....The Shakespearean Playing Companiesis an interesting, vastly learned book. --Medieval and Renaissance Drama in England

It is a master narrative of the rise and decline of the major acting companies from the mid-sixteenth to the mid-seventeenth century....The prospects opened by this book are always enlivening. --Modern Philology