Shakespeare
Some think that Shakespeare spent time as both an actor and writer for Pembroke's Men in the early 1590s. Two of the earliest quarto publications of individual Shakespearean plays are both linked to this company: the title page of the earliest text of Henry VI, Part 3 (1595) states that the play was performed by Pembroke's Men, while the title page of Q1 of Titus Andronicus (1594) states that that play was acted by three companies, Pembroke's Men, Derby's Men, and Sussex's Men. The mention of three acting companies for one play is unusual; but the early 1590s were difficult years for the professional actors of the day. Severe epidemics of bubonic plague forced a halt to public performances in and around London; the actors' troupes toured the provinces, splintered and recombined, and generally did whatever was necessary to continue.
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Famous quotes containing the word shakespeare:
“But something may be done that we will not,
And sometimes we are devils to ourselves,
When we will tempt the frailty of our powers,
Presuming on their changeful potency.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“The quality of mercy is not strained,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“When I was about thy years, Hal, I was not an eagle’s talon in the waist, I could have crept into any alderman’s thumb-ring.
A plague of sighing and grief, it blows a man up like a
bladder.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)