The dream factory : London's first playhouse and the making of William Shakespeare / Daniel Swift.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Swift, Daniel, 1977- Author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Theater and society--England--London--History--16th century.

Theater and society.

Dramatists, English--Early modern, 1500-1700--Biography.

Dramatists, English.

Theatre, The (London, England)--History.

Theatre, The (London, England).

Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616--Stage history--To 1625.

Shakespeare, William.

Shoreditch (London, England)--History.

Shoreditch (London, England).

Genre:

Biographies.

Physical Description:

xiv, 302 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color), map ; 24 cm

Edition:

First American edition.

Place of Publication:

New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2025.

Summary:

"Between 1576 and 1598, a playhouse called the Theatre stood in the northeast suburbs of London, until it was secretly torn down and its timbers 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 London, 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, of course, but it was also Shakespeare's, who worked with a close team of actors and cowriters at the Theatre, building the foundations of his own career and devising a way to make money 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 begam 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." -- Dust jacket.

Contents:

Prologue: The dreamers and the dream

Part I, 1576-82. The carpenters

The preachers

The servants of the Earl

The landlord

Part II, 1583-90. The apprentices

The unbound man

The money man

The best actor

Part III, 1591-6. The journeyman

Two masters

The follows

Epilogue: The confederacy.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 275-288) and index.

ISBN:

9780374601270

0374601275

OCLC:

1478323918

Publisher Number:

90103096331