Acting Companies and their Plays in Shakespeares London

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Acting Companies and their Plays in Shakespeare's London explores the intimate and dynamic relationship between acting companies and playwrights in this seminal era in English theatre history. Siobhan Keenans analysis includes chapters on the traditions and workings of contemporary acting companies, playwriting practices, stages and staging, audiences and patrons, each illustrated with detailed case studies of individual acting companies and their plays, including troupes such as Lady Elizabeths players, Beestons Boys and the Kings Men and works by Shakespeare, Jonson, Middleton, Brome and Heywood. We are accustomed to focusing on individual playwrights: Acting Companies and their Plays in Shakespeare's London makes the case that we also need to think about the companies for which dramatists wrote and with whose members they collaborated, if we wish to better understand the dramas of the English Renaissance stage.

Reviews

It's hard to imagine a better modern introduction to the commercial and artistic business of theatre in the early modern period than Siobhan Keenan's Acting Companies and their Plays in Shakespeare's London. [...] The book is well structured to combine survey and analysis, and a case study in each chapter develops its key findings in more depth. -- Emma Smith, University of Oxford, UK * Around the Globe *
Contemporary scholarship on Shakespeare, Elizabethan theater, and early modern culture can seem overwhelming in scope, esoteric in content, and impenetrable in presentation. Keenans accessible, concise volume is not in that mold Each chapter also offers a specific case study in which Keenan meticulously applies the concepts of the chapter to a specific play. Keenan impresses on readers the vitality and significance of acting companies in relation to this celebrated period of theater. This book will be indispensable for those exploring Shakespeare and his contemporaries. Summing Up: Essential. Academic readers at all levels, professionals, general readers. -- S. B. Skelton, Kansas State University * CHOICE *
If anyone is seeking comprehensive guidance through the morass of acting companies in Shakespeares England, this is the place to go to. * Shakespeare Newsletter *

Author Bio

Siobhan Keenan is a Senior Lecturer at De Montfort University, Leicester, UK.