~ Handbook: Acting Company ~

There were several competing theater companies during Shakespeare's career. Each took its name from the aristocrat who was the company's nominal patron; without such patronage the actors would have been in the same legal class as vagrants and beggars. Shakespeare's company was under the "protection" of a high court official called the Lord Chamberlain until 1603 when, with the accession of King James I, it became the King's Men (or Servants). Despite this vestige of feudal organization, the Lord Chamberlain's/King's Men functioned as a proto-capitalist business, drawing much of its income from paid admissions to its home theater. The Lord Chamberlain's/King's Men included boys and men (there were no girls or women) who were paid a wage, and others who were shareholders or "sharers" in the company's profits. Shakespeare the actor was a sharer. He was also a stockholder in the company's eventual home, the Globe Theater. The theaters were periodically closed, for instance by outbreaks of plague; at such times the company might go on tour. At all times it was more than happy to play command performances at the royal court, which paid highly and were excellent for prestige. The repertory of the Lord Chamberlain's/King's Men was huge by the standards of any modern repertory theater: the actors performed as many as 30 different plays in a single theatrical season. Of those plays, at least 15 would be new that year (including, on average, two by Shakespeare); the company added a new play to its repertory about once every two weeks. Rehearsal periods must have been relatively brief. There was no director in the modern sense of the word.