Playing Company - Costs

Costs

The playing companies did not need to spend money on scenery, and their stage props were often basic (necessarily, since every company made a substantial portion of its income by touring, and some companies toured consistently with no home theatre). Their costs in costumes, however, were high: actors playing kings, cardinals, princes, and noblemen had to look the part. Companies had hundreds of pounds of value invested in their costumes, in "glaring satin suits" and "sumptuous dresses" — "cloaks in scarlet with gold laces and buttons, and in purple satin adorned with silver;" doublets of "carnation velvet, flame, ginger, red and green; and women's gowns in white satin and cloth of gold." In 1605, Edward Alleyn estimated that his share in the "apparell" of the Admiral's Men was worth £100 — and Alleyn was one of nine sharers in the company at the time. When a company got itself into financial difficulties, the members sometimes had to pawn their costumes, as Pembroke's Men did in the plague year of 1593.

In 1605 the actor Augustine Phillips left specific pieces of his wardrobe to an apprentice in his last will and testament — including his "mouse-colored" velvet hose, purple cloak, white taffeta doublet, and black taffeta suit. To a modern sensibility, this may sound quaint and odd; but when "a doublet and hose of seawater green satin cost £3," the monetary value of Phillips' items was not negligible. Actors could face serious penalties for appropriating the costumes of their companies.

(The players could defray some of their costs in the used clothing market. Often, "eminent lords and knights at their decease" would leave articles of their finery to their servants — much of it "unseemly" for servingmen and women to wear. Such garments would end up the property of the actors.)

A second major cost lay in play scripts. In the years around 1600, playwrights could be paid as little as £6 to £7 per play (or about the price of two suits). Yet since the companies acted a constantly changing repertory, they needed an abundant supply of plays. Philip Henslowe's Diary records dozens of titles for the 1597–1603 period; when Worcester's Men were setting up for their first London season in 1602, they purchased a dozen new plays from Henslowe's stable of house playwrights, to supplement their existing stock.

The sharers in the company also paid wages to their hired men and boys. Wages differed somewhat over time and from company to company and case to case; but the general average minimum was 1 shilling per man per day, the same wage as that of an artisan worker. Boys cost perhaps half as much, though they were often maintained under some version of an apprenticeship arrangement, which could vary widely in details.