Travelling Players in Shakespeare's England - by S Keenan (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

Travelling Players in Shakespeare's England is the first extended study of the touring practices and performances of Elizabethan and Jacobean travelling players. It opens with a general introduction to the lively, competitive world of professional touring theatre. Following chapters focus on playing practices and performances in the spaces used as temporary theatres by touring actors (such a town halls and country houses). The final chapter looks at the decline of this important theatrical tradition in the 1620s.

Review Quotes

'This is an excellent exploration of the touring performances of the professional companies, focusing on the specific places that players used in the provinces (town halls, churches and their precincts, inns, market squares, school houses and colleges, country houses, provincial theatres). Keenan's book will fill a serious gap in the existing literature.' - Professor Peter Stallybrass, University of Pennsylvania

'Siobhan Keenan can justly claim the status of a pioneer, for in Travelling Players in Shakespeare's England she has given us the first general survey of the subject and has pushed the scales a little against metropolitan dominance. Armed with her scholarly buckler and sword of lath, she has sallied forth on a tour of every kind of venue once frequented by the sixteenth and seventeenth-century playing companies.' - Nicholas Robins, Times Literary Supplement

'This is not only a very good book, it is also a very important and much needed book...To use a sadly overused phrase, but in this case to really mean it, this book is a significant contribution to scholarship.' - The Shakespeare Newsletter

About the Author

SIOBHAN KEENAN is a Lecturer in English at the University of the West of England, Bristol. She has published articles on Renaissance drama and the new Globe theatre and edited Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey.