The Dream Factory - by Daniel Swift (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

How Shakespeare became Shakespeare: a riveting tale of London's first playhouse and the people--actors, writers, builders, investors--who built the Theatre.

Between 1576 and 1598, a playhouse called the Theatre stood in the suburbs of London, until it was secretly torn down and its timbers were used to build the much more famous Globe. Dreamed up and run by a former actor and notorious brawler named James Burbage, the Theatre was the first purpose-built commercial playhouse in London. It was plagued by litigation, heavily in debt, and the target of endless condemnation by preachers and the Lord Mayor. It was also where the young William Shakespeare worked when he first arrived in the city, and it was here that he wrote many of his early plays.

At the heart of the Theatre was the dream of making money from creating art. This was Burbage's dream, but it was also that of Shakespeare, who worked with a close team of actors and cowriters, laying the foundation of his own career and devising a way to earn a living from writing.

Through the life of this little-known playhouse, Daniel Swift tells the story of how Shakespeare became Shakespeare, and of how the Elizabethan stage began to flourish. Introducing us to the businessmen who thought up the Theatre, the carpenters who built it, the preachers who hated it, and the actors who performed upon its small stage, The Dream Factory re-creates the world that produced Romeo and Juliet and A Midsummer Night's Dream--and the audiences who first saw them. The Theatre was a controversial, highly commercial workshop for great and challenging art. Into this dream factory walked the son of a Stratford glovemaker, and from it emerged the greatest writer in the English language.

Review Quotes

"Brilliant . . . A transfixing portrait of the theater that made Shakespeare who he was. The Dream Factory is an indispensable account of a chaotic and creative period . . . Swift pays [Shakespeare] the compliment of recognizing the Bard in exactly the way that he would have recognized himself--as a laborer."
--Ed Simon, The New York Times

"Daniel Swift's deftly written, engaging rescue of this playhouse from comparative obscurity . . . will deservedly be read by many who love theatre, but don't know about the Theatre."
--Peter Holland, Times Literary Supplement

"Deftly navigating social politics, the plague and preachers wishing for the Theatre's downfall, Swift tells its history in the most original way."
--Zuzanna Lachendro, New Statesman

"[A] smart mix of history and literary criticism . . . [Swift] succeeds in elucidating the economics and culture that gave rise to a literary icon. Readers will be reminded that even a writer as highly regarded as Shakespeare once needed to learn and practice his craft."
--Publishers Weekly

"The Dream Factory brilliantly shows how Shakespeare was not merely a man of the theatre but a man of the Theatre, the playhouse where he developed the mastery of his art."
--David Scott Kastan, author of A Will to Believe

"A thrilling account . . . A story I thought I knew but didn't. Swift brightly illuminates that raucous, scrappy, litigious world."
--Greg Doran, The Week

"The Dream Factory is one of the most exciting and original books about Shakespeare that I've read in years. Deeply researched, beautifully written, it brings to life how Shakespeare 'became Shakespeare' and created his early masterpieces at the Theatre in Shoreditch. A thrilling story, well told."
--James Shapiro, author of A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare: 1599

"Sometimes mysteries hide in plain sight and it takes an insightful, patient, and astute writer to uncover them. Thanks to Daniel Swift's brilliant research we now know that Shakespeare's first playhouse, the Theatre, was just as important to him as the Globe."
--Andrew Hadfield, author of Edmund Spenser

About the Author