The Admiral's Men is the acting company that staged Christopher Marlowe's plays while its companion company was giving the first performances of Shakespeare. Unlike the Shakespeare company, there is plenty of evidence available telling us what the Admiral's company did and how it staged its plays. Not only do we know far more about the design of its two playhouses, the Rose and the Fortune, than we know of any other playhouse from the time, including the Globe, but we have Henslowe's Diary. This recorded everything the Admiral's company performed from 1594 to 1600 and after, what the company bought to stage its plays, who performed which parts, who wrote which plays and even how much they were paid. The first history to be written of the Admiral's Men, this book tells us not only a great deal about the company's own work, but also how the Shakespeare company operated.

For most of the 1590s, the Admiral's Men were the main competitors of Shakespeare's company in the London theatres. Not only did they stage old plays by dramatists such as Christopher Marlowe and Thomas Kyd: their playwrights invented the genres of humours comedy (with An Humorous Day's Mirth) and city comedy (with Englishmen for My Money), while other new plays such as A Knack to Know an Honest Man and The Downfall of Robert, Earl of Huntingdon were important influences on Shakespeare. This is the first book to read the Admiral's repertory against Shakespeare's plays of the 1590s, showing both how Shakespeare drew on their innovations and how his plays influenced Admiral's dramatists in turn. Shedding new light on well-known plays and offering detailed analysis of less familiar ones, it offers a fresh perspective on the dramatic culture of the 1590s.

The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus, commonly referred to simply as Doctor Faustus, is an Elizabethan tragedy by Christopher Marlowe, based on German stories about the title character Faust, that was first performed sometime between 1588 and Marlowe's death in 1593. Two different versions of the play were published in the Jacobean era, several years later.The powerful effect of early productions of the play is indicated by the legends that quickly accrued around them-that actual devils once appeared on the stage during a performance, "to the great amazement of both the actors and spectators", a sight that was said to have driven some spectators mad.

While over the past four hundred years numerous opinions have been voiced as to Shakespeare's identity, these eleven essays widen the scope of the investigation by regarding Shakespeare, his world, and his works in their interaction with one another. Instead of restricting the search for bits and pieces of evidence from his works that seem to match what he may have experienced, these essays focus on the contemporary milieu—political developments, social and theater history, and cultural and religious pressures—as well as the domestic conditions within Shakespeare's family that shaped his personality and are featured in his works. The authors of these essays, employing the tenets of critical theory and practice as well as intuitive and informed insight, endeavor to look behind the masks, thus challenging the reader to adjudicate among the possible, the probable, the likely, and the unlikely. With the exception of the editor’s own piece on Hamlet, Shakespeare the Man: New Decipherings presents previously unpublished essays, inviting the reader to embark upon an intellectual adventure into the fascinating terrain of Shakespeare's mind and art.

Young Will Shakespeare has writers block... the deadline for his new play is fast approaching but hes in desperate need of inspiration. That is, until he finds his muse – Viola. This beautiful young woman is Will’s greatest admirer and will stop at nothing (including breaking the law) to appear in his next play. Against a bustling background of mistaken identity, ruthless scheming and backstage theatrics, Will’s love for Viola quickly blossoms and inspires him to write his greatest masterpiece.

The New York Times Best Seller Experience the Star Wars saga reimagined as an Elizabethan drama penned by William Shakespeare himself, complete with authentic meter and verse, and theatrical monologues and dialogue by everyone from Darth Vader to R2D2. Return once more to a galaxy far, far away with this sublime retelling of George Lucas’s epic Star Wars in the style of the immortal Bard of Avon. The saga of a wise (Jedi) knight and an evil (Sith) lord, of a beautiful princess held captive and a young hero coming of age, Star Wars abounds with all the valor and villainy of Shakespeare’s greatest plays. Authentic meter, stage directions, reimagined movie scenes and dialogue, and hidden Easter eggs throughout will entertain and impress fans of Star Wars and Shakespeare alike. Every scene and character from the film appears in the play, along with twenty woodcut-style illustrations that depict an Elizabethan version of the Star Wars galaxy. Zounds! This is the book you’re looking for.

Taking to heart Thomas Heywood’s claim that plays “persuade men to humanity and good life, instruct them in civility and good manners, showing them the fruits of honesty, and the end of villainy,” Mark Bayer’s captivating new study argues that the early modern London theatre was an important community institution whose influence extended far beyond its economic, religious, educational, and entertainment contributions. Bayer concentrates not on the theatres where Shakespeare’s plays were performed but on two important amphitheatres, the Fortune and the Red Bull, that offer a more nuanced picture of the Jacobean playgoing industry. By looking at these playhouses, the plays they staged, their audiences, and the communities they served, he explores the local dimensions of playgoing. Focusing primarily on plays and theatres from 1599 to 1625, Bayer suggests that playhouses became intimately engaged with those living and working in their surrounding neighborhoods. They contributed to local commerce and charitable endeavors, offered a convivial gathering place where current social and political issues were sifted, and helped to define and articulate the shared values of their audiences. Bayer uses the concept of social capital, inherent in the connections formed among individuals in various communities, to construct a sociology of the theatre from below—from the particular communities it served—rather than from the broader perspectives imposed from above by church and state. By transacting social capital, whether progressive or hostile, the large public amphitheatres created new and unique groups that, over the course of millions of visits to the playhouses in the Jacobean era, contributed to a broad range of social practices integral to the daily lives of playgoers. In lively and convincing prose that illuminates the significant reciprocal relationships between different playhouses and their playgoers, Bayer shows that theatres could inform and benefit London society and the communities geographically closest to them.