Mini: Traveling Theatre Companies

Sep 28

In today's mini-episode, we'll be talking about the touring theatre companies of Shakespeare's time. Did companies like the Players in Hamlet actually exist (and is Shakespeare's depiction of them accurate)? What do we know about them?

Kourtney Smith (KS): Welcome to another Shakespeare Anyone mini-episode! In these mini-episodes, we’ll be exploring topics that are related to Shakespeare but aren’t necessarily connected to whatever play we’ve been discussing.

Elyse Sharp (ES): And they’re mini, because, well, they’re shorter than our other episodes. They’re like quartos if the regular episodes are folio editions.

KS: In today’s episode, we’ll be talking about early modern traveling acting companies!

ES: Fun fact: Korey and I first met when we were actors in the same traveling play!

KS: While modern audiences expect to attend plays in a purpose-built theatre, whether that be through famous cultural centers like Broadway or at their local community theatre, early modern audiences were more likely to expect plays to be performed by traveling acting companies who would come to them, rather than going to a purpose-built theatre.

ES: But before we discuss early modern traveling companies, also called provincial troupes, let’s take a quick look at early modern England’s theatrical ancestors.

KS: If you remember from our Intro Series, the purpose-built playhouses owned by professional acting companies were new to early modern England. While professional acting and purpose-built playhouses had been around for many centuries in many civilizations – most famously the ancient Greek plays that took place in amphitheaters – the early modern theatrical traditions started out closer to their Medieval predecessors.

ES: With the fall of the Roman Empire and the rise of Christianity, the early Middle Ages abandoned the pagan plays of the ancient Greeks and Romans in favor of stories that promoted Christian values. For whatever reason that we simply don’t have time to uncover in this mini-episode, Medieval plays were not performed in playhouses or amphitheaters, but were performed in public spaces or courts by traveling actors. These performances included skits, puppet shows, minstrels, jugglers and pageants.

KS: However, the theatrical tradition changed around the High Middle Ages when churches started writing liturgical dramas, the earliest recorded being Quem Quaeritis, Latin for “Whom do you seek?” These liturgical dramas were often performed around Easter or the Christmas season and included music and singing, in addition to their scripted Biblical stories performed by the clergy.

ES: From here, drama comes out of the church and expands into plays. One example of a genre to come out of the Middle Ages is the Cycle Play, starting around the 1400s. Cycle plays are stories from the Christian tradition that are performed by members of the community. The community breaks the story of the Bible up and performs it one story after another, from the creation to the final judgment, during the English holiday Corpus Christi.

KS: Cycle Play stories were divided up amongst the town’s guilds. Each guild performed their portion of the story on their own pageant wagons, which is a wagon decorated and dedicated specifically to their story. The wagon might then be stored away in the off-season so that it could be rolled out for the next year’s performance. It’s unclear if it's the wagons or the audience that were stationary – but, honestly, each town’s system might have been a little bit different, depending on their needs.

ES: Around the same time as the Cycle Plays, the genre of the Mystery Play was being developed. Mystery Plays did not concern themselves with the cycles, per se, but, rather, focused on additional sacred subjects, like saints' lives. They were not all performed on the same day, like the Cycle Plays, but instead were typically performed on the appropriate Saint’s Day or holiday. Mystery Plays were performed on a scaffold, sometimes with set pieces that depicted locations, like the Hellmouth or Heaven.

KS: If you’re interested in Cycle or Mystery Plays, Sarah Ruhl’s play Passion Play does a great job depicting what that would have looked like during three time periods – 1575 Northern England, 1934 Germany and South Dakota from Vietnam to Reagan.

ES: And now we want to discuss one last genre to emerge from Medieval theatre because this genre greatly influenced early modern playwrights; and that is the Morality Play. Morality Plays are allegorical, meaning the plays are about large concepts and feature symbolic characters. For example, a concept might be justice and a character might be named “Mankind”, “Vice” or any symbol in between. Morality Plays were performed outdoors and in-the-round any time of year but most likely whenever the weather was nice. Morality Plays were performed primarily by professional traveling actors who would perform from town to town. The Morality Play was a popular form of theatre during the end of the Late Middle Ages and early Turdor period.

KS: So now that we’ve made it all the way up to the Elizabethan period, what did it mean to be a traveling troupe (also referred to as “provincial troupe”) in early modern England?

ES: As we’ve discussed in our Intro Series, actors and playwrights in early modern England were not viewed as the cream of the crop in society like today’s Hollywood and Broadway elites. In fact, actors were legally classified as vagabonds and sturdy beggars by an act of Parliament in 1572. In order to legally perform, actors had to hold employment as servants of noblemen. Some noble households, as well as the royals, employed acting troupes as part of their household staff.

KS: Household troupes performed for their patrons on many occasions, specifically for important holidays like the Christmas or Twelfth Night season, Shrovetide, as well as at weddings or when their employers had guests. However, during the slow season, so to speak, troupes could go on tour around the countryside to pick up extra gigs if they weren’t needed at home. And patrons were happy to send their troupe on the road because it promoted their noble brand and showcased their noble influence.

ES: Unfortunately, due to a lack of surviving provincial playbills, the logistics of an early modern acting tour are mostly a mystery. We don’t know much about each household troupe’s tour: where they traveled, how long they’d be on tour, what plays they performed, which actors performed or, really, many logistics! As of right now, historians and scholars only have a few accounts from letters and diaries.

KS: But we do know that traveling troupes would arrive in town wearing their patron’s liveries, or badges, and would roll into town pulling a cart full of props and costumes. Then, they would likely trumpet their arrival as a promotional tactic.

ES: We also know that when a provincial troupe came to town, they were required to show official licenses as proof that they were legally allowed to tour. If they had proof of their license, the troupe would first perform a command performance for the mayor and city council. If their play was approved by the council, then they’d get to perform for the town. But just as you needed a license to perform, don’t think that prevented rogue troupes from rolling up to town flashing fake licenses.

KS: And while one might assume that traveling would be prohibitive due to the logistics of transporting all of your costumes, props, and set pieces, as well as the possible limitations of your venue, this would have more likely affected plays that were first staged in purpose-built theatres. While early modern theatre relied more heavily on costumes and props than on set-pieces, actors still would have needed to be flexible and adapt to necessary changes to accommodate changing venues. For instance, dialogue and blocking could be affected due to the venue. (Think lines written to acknowledge the Globe or Hampton Court; or Macbeth’s witches exiting in the trap door). But, for the provincial troupes, likely written and blocked to be performed on the road, there might not have been the same need to adapt your plays.

ES: One of the big difficulties a London company might face on the road is music. One major component to Shakespeare’s plays was music. Specific plays, think Twelfth Night and Macbeth, have dialogue that instructs musicians to play, or songs for characters to sing. In addition, Shakespeare’s tragedies end with a jig when performed in a purpose-built theatre. Depending on the venue, cast and musicians, music might have drastically changed from London to the country. In one instance, we can trace the Children of the Chapel on the road with the Chamberlain’s Men during their 1591 tour, but we don’t know if the boys performed with the adult company. Companies also might have hired local musicians if the need arose. But unfortunately, we don’t have much information about musicians or actors with musical abilities to extrapolate from.

KS: We do know that between 1590 and 1642, there were about twenty professional acting companies in London, and only around four would perform in London playhouses at any given time. In contrast, there were over one hundred provincial troupes who performed on the road in the countryside. Statistically, we can assume that, generally, there were far more plays happening in the countryside than in London.

ES: In spite of everything we don’t know, some historians and scholars have developed the notion that there was a distinct divide between London companies and provincial troupes. But, in all honesty, we don’t have enough proof of who performed where and when. So, as of yet, there isn’t a way to really know how much cross-over did or did not exist between London troupes and provincial troupes. For example, we don’t know which companies frequently used the Swan, the Curtain or the obscure Newington Butts Theatre. All this to say, there might be provincial troupes that did perform in London, as well as city-troupes that performed on the road more frequently! (Think the actors in Hamlet heading to Elsinore because there wasn’t a need for plays in the city).

KS: Unfortunately we can’t speak much on provincial troupes anymore, so let’s talk about the London companies, like Shakespeare’s, on tour.

ES: We know that some London companies, like Lord Strange’s Men and the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, have more accounts in the city and at court, than on the road. However, these troupes did have reasons to go on tour. One major reason a London troupe might hit the road was to make money when purpose-built playhouses faced plague closures. In 1604, the Privy Council decreed that public playing should stop once the number of weekly plague deaths in London rose “above the number of thirty.” With multiple plague resurgences throughout Elizabethan and Jacobean London and no government programs to keep theatermakers home, London troupes chose to tour.

KS: In addition to plague mandates, traveling might have been more reliable for troupes than performing in purpose-built theatres. Throughout the public theatre’s early years, civic authorities increased their attempts to shut down playhouses due to their concern with crowd control and rowdiness inside public theatres. Remember: an early modern audience member’s experience was far different than ours today! And one last advantage to traveling is a practical onES: companies could limit their repertoire on the road because they’re only performing a few times in this one town before packing up and performing in another town. London troupes, on the other hand, were expected to perform from a larger portion of their plays.

ES: And, again, unfortunately, we don’t have detailed records of the Chamberlain’s Men’s tour history. The records we do have are from accountants who kept track of the finances: how much was paid and to which patron’s company. But any other information that we might want, like play title, cast list and eyewitness accounts, was not included.

KS: Whether Shakespeare was on the tour a lot or a little during his career is unknown, but we do know that traveling troupes did inspire him! Some we can see in his plays (which we will get to…). But before we do, some scholars suggest that a provincial troupe (or many!) was what first inspired Shakespeare to move to London and become an actor.

ES: While Shakespeare Origin Stories run rampant, we cannot confirm any one of them. But there are two that sound quite tempting! One theory is that Shakespeare stepped into a role for a traveling troupe after one of their actors mysteriously died on the road. From Stratford, Shakespeare continued with the troupe all the way back to London and, by 1592, became a professional actor.

KS: A second theory is that, as a boy, Shakespeare would have attended plays by traveling companies, like Leicester’s Men, in Stratford, or nearby in Coventry, Warwick or Kenilworth Castle. From this exposure, he then made his way to London theatre. Director of Research and General Editor of the Records of Early English Drama at the University of Toronto, Sally-Beth Maclean agrees that it was more likely Shakespeare was affected by the visiting actors who would have performed in the building where he went to school, rather than an apocryphal tale. This is because Stratford Guild Hall, where provincial troupes performed, hosted the grammar school that Shakespeare attended, so it was likely he would have also attended plays there.

ES: And, before we move on, we want to address that apocryphal tale of Shakespeare replacing a dead actor because we brought it up in our Intro Series! We want to make sure that everyone understands that there is zero evidence to substantiate the story. The only information we know for sure is from the few public records containing the name “William Shakespeare”. We can definitely track Shakespeare’s first appearance in London to when he wrote with Strange’s Men at the Rose before Strange’s Men (and Shakespeare) joined the Lord Chamberlain’s Men. Anything else is lost to history.

KS: And, like we mentioned earlier, Shakespeare does include a traveling acting company in one of his plays. That play is Hamlet! In act two, a troupe of traveling actors are welcomed into Elsinore to perform a play for the court. Hamlet, Rosencranz and Guildenstern discuss how the actors typically perform in the city but, because the theatre no longer attracts the same audience numbers as they once did (maybe a slight dig at the “fickle” groundlings…), the troupe is choosing to tour Denmark. Like the provincial troupes of Shakespeare’s time, a horn sounds to announce their arrival. And, after the acting company has been dismissed, Hamlet keeps the First Player behind to ask if they can perform the play The Murder of Gonzago with, at Hamlet’s request, a short speech that he wrote. We, of course, see The Murder of Gonzago on-stage in the play-within-a-play in act three. The players helped Hamlet catch the conscience of the king!

ES: Shakespeare does depict other meta-theatre moments in his plays, like the community organized Pyramus and Thisbe in A Midsummer Night’s Dream; as well as the festive court masque in The Tempest. However, Hamlet’s scene with the players is the only moment he depicts actors doing what they did frequently, traveling. Perhaps this is a slight window into what it was like for an early modern troupe to perform on the road.

KS: But a few windows into traveling troupes from Hamlet and others is all we might get because, again, we don’t have enough accounts to confirm or deny much of anything about the traveling troupe’s experience. Most record-keepers in a troupe or in city government didn’t write detailed notes in their ledgers. There also weren’t enough Phillip Henslowe’s documenting their theatre-going in their diary.

ES: And, even though we can cobble together some history through scarce record keeping and witness accounts, we don’t have any firsthand accounts of the tour circuit from the most valuable perspectivES: the actors themselves! For that, early modern English historians and scholars (like us) weep a little.

KS: And that’s early modern traveling acting companies!

ES: Thank you for listening to this episode.

Quote of the Episode:

ES: From King John act five, scene three, said by Louis the Dauphin, “Strike up the drums, and let the tongue of war plead for our interest and our being here.”

Shakespeare Anyone? is created and produced by Kourtney Smith and Elyse Sharp.

Note: When this episode was recorded, Kourtney Smith was "Korey Leigh Smith".

Episode written and researched by Kourtney Smith.

Music is "Neverending Minute" by Sounds Like Sander.

You can support the podcast at patreon.com/shakespeareanyone

Works referenced:

Cash, Cassidy, host. “Ep 25: Sally Beth MacLean & 16th Century English Travelling Playing Companies.” That Shakespeare Life, episode 25, Publisher, 8 October 2018, https://html5-player.libsyn.com/embed/episode/id/7137029/height/90/theme/custom/autoplay/no/autonext/no/thumbnail/yes/preload/no/no_addthis/no/direction/backward/render-playlist/no/custom-color/cc0014/.

The Medievalists. (2020). Medieval Drama. YouTube. YouTube. Retrieved September 7, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HExBbaIJWfw.