Sussex's Men - Shakespeare

Shakespeare

The crucial item in their Rose repertory was the play that Henslowe's Diary consistently calls Titus & Ondronicus, which Sussex's Men played three times, on January 23 and 28 and February 6, 1594. The play was popular, and produced high profits for Henslowe, of 40 shillings or more at each performance. Scholars unanimously recognize this as Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus. When Shakespeare's Titus was first published in 1594, the title page of the first quarto states that the play was acted by three different companies, Lord Strange's Men (also called Derby's Men), Pembroke's Men, and Sussex's Men. Interestingly, Lord Strange's Men had acted a Titus & Vespacian in 1592; scholars debate the relationship between the two Titus plays, though since the earlier work is no longer extant the relationship cannot be fully or finally ascertained. (A play about the father-and-son Roman emperors Vespasian and Titus would have had a different subject from Shakespeare's.)