Admiral's Men - Repertory

A theatre company founded in England c.1576–9 and managed by Philip Henslowe. It was known first as Lord Howard's Men after patron Charles Howard, 1st Earl of Nottingham, who became lord high admiral of England in 1585. Edward Alleyn was chief actor and the company became closely associated with Christopher Marlowe and performed several of his works. Following Alleyn's retirement (1603) the company gradually declined and had disbanded by 1631.

after 1612, the Elector Palatine's Men or the Palsgrave's Men) was a theatre company in the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras, generally considered the second most important acting troupe of English Renaissance theatre (after the company of Shakespeare, the Lord Chamberlain's or King's Men).

They were first known as the Lord Howard's Men, named after their patron Charles Howard, 1st Earl of Nottingham.

Despite the power of their patron, the Admiral's Men were not entirely free of official interference. Both they and the Lord Strange's Men were stopped from playing by the Lord Mayor of London in November 1589; During this period of difficulty the Admiral's Men moved ito James Burbage's The Theatre for a time (Nov. 1590–May 1591), and there they played Dead Man's Fortune with a young Richard Burbage in the cast—the only time that the later competitors Burbage and Edward Alleyn, the longtime star of the Admiral's, are known to have acted together.

If the Admiral's Men were having difficulties in the City in this period, they were still welcome at Court (Dec. 28, 1589;

It was during the later 1580s that the company established its longterm relationship with Philip Henslowe, theatre builder, producer, impressario. Henslowe's Rose Theatre was home to the Admiral's Men for a number of years, and Henslowe played a key role as a blend of manager and financier. After the major disruption of the 1592–3 era, when the public theatres endured a long closure due to bubonic plague, the Admiral's Men entered another lush period in 1594 and after.

Henslowe had interests in other theatres, including the Fortune Theatre (built in 1600), and when the lease ran out on The Rose in 1605 it was abandoned. The move to the Fortune also allowed the Admiral's Men to re-organize into something closer to a "free association" structure, like that of the Lord Chamberlain's Men, and thus to lessen, to some degree, Henslowe's control over their finances.

Sometime in the winter of 1603–4, after the House of Stuart succeeded to the throne of England, the Admiral's Men acquired a new patron, Prince Henry (1594–1612), later the Prince of Wales (1610–12). During this period their core cohort of players consisted of William Bird, Thomas Towne, Samuel Rowley, Charles Massey, Humphrey and Anthony Jeffes, Edward Juby, and Thomas Downton (who'd been part of Pembroke's Men's notorious 1597 production of The Isle of Dogs).

The company was known as Prince Henry's Men until the Henry's early death (Nov. 6, 1612), after which they came under the patronage of his new brother-in-law, Frederick V, Elector Palatine. Their new patent of Jan. 11, 1613 lists six of the actors of the pevious decade, Juby, Bird, Rowley, Massey, Downton, and Humphrey Jeffes, plus six new men, who included William Shanks, later a long-time member of the King's Men, and Richard Gunnell, who would become a theatre producer and impressario by building the Salisbury Court Theatre with William Blagrave in 1629.

Repertory

The Admiral's Men acted a huge repertory of plays during their long career;

Jeronimo, anonymous, 1592 The Blind Beggar of Alexandria, George Chapman, 1596 An Humorous Day's Mirth, George Chapman, 1597 The Downfall of Robert Earl of Huntingdon, Anthony Munday and Henry Chettle, 1598 The Death of Robert Earl of Huntingdon, Munday and Chettle, 1598 The Shoemaker's Holiday, Thomas Dekker, 1599 Sir John Oldcastle, Munday, Robert Wilson, Richard Hathwaye, and Michael Drayton, 1599 The Honest Whore, Part 1, Dekker and Thomas Middleton, 1604 When You See Me, You Know Me, Samuel Rowley, 1605 The Whore of Babylon, Dekker, 1607 The Roaring Girl, Dekker and Middleton, 1611

[See also: Sir Thomas More.]