Chamberlain's Men
Formed in 1594, based initially at the theatre, and drawing actors from the Admiral's men, this acting company is strongly associated with Shakespeare, and performed most of his plays. In ...
clown
In Elizabethan days a composite comic character, who might be a simpleton, a knave, or a Court Jester. Shakespeare provides examples of all three with Costard in Love's Labour's Lost ...
Englische Komödianten
The first troupe of English touring comic actors on the Continent appear to have accompanied Leicester to the Netherlands when he was made governor-general there in 1585. Performing short comic ...
English Comedians
Itinerant English theatre companies which toured Germany from the late sixteenth to early seventeenth centuries. In many ways similar to the commedia dell'arte troupes, the Englische Komödianten ...
Fair Youth
Some of the poems numbered 1 to 126 in the usual arrangement of Shakespeare's Sonnets are addressed to a young man. Under the supposition that he is the same man ...
fool
All Fools' Day a humorous term for 1 April as a day for testing the credulity of others; recorded from the early 18th century, and probably modelled on All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day.fools and ...
jig
‘an afterpiece in the form of a brief farce which was sung and accompanied by dancing’, popular in the Elizabethan and Jacobean theatre, but few have survived.
morris dance
English ceremonial folk dance which first appeared in England in the 15th century. Its origins are unknown, although it may have derived from the moresca, a dance found in Burgundy in the early ...
Much Ado About Nothing
A comedy by Shakespeare, written probably 1598–9, first printed 1600. Its chief sources are a novella by Bandello and an episode in Ariosto's Orlando Furioso.The prince of Arragon, with Claudio and ...
Parnassus Plays
The name given to a trilogy produced between 1598 and 1602 by students of St John's College, Cambridge, consisting of The Pilgrimage to Parnassus and The Returne from Parnassus, the latter apparently ...
Richard Tarlton
(d.1588)English actor. From 1583 to his death, Tarlton acted with the Queen's Men, playing at the Curtain, at London inns, and on company tours. Whatever the play, Tarlton inhabited ...
Robert Armin
(c.1568–1615)An actor and writer who seems to have joined Shakespeare's company, the Lord Chamberlain's Men, by 1599. The author of a book called Foole upon Foole (1600), he specialized in comic ...
Theatre
Built by James Burbage in 1576 in Shoreditch, on the main road north out of the city, the Theatre was the first successful custom-built playhouse in London. It was the ...
Thomas Pope
(fl. 1593–1603)English actor who began his career with a troupe of itinerant players in Denmark and Germany (1586–7; see English Comedians). By 1590 he was playing in London with ...
Twelfth Night
AT: What You Will A: William Shakespeare Pf: c.1601–2, London Pb: 1623 G: Com. in 5 acts; blank verse and prose S: Illyria, Renaissance period C: 11m, 3f, extrasOrsino, Duke of Illyria, is in love ...
