Lord Strange's Men
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Lord Strange's Men was an Elizabethan playing company, comprising retainers of the household of Ferdinando Stanley, Lord Strange (pronounced "strang"). They are best known in their final phase of activity in the late 1580s and early 1590s. For a brief seven months, from Sept. 25, 1593 to April 16, 1594, they were known as the Earl of Derby's Men, those being the dates of Stanley's accession to his father's title, and his own death.
Early iterations of the company were active in the 1560s and 1570s; Henry Stanley, 4th Earl of Derby, kept players both before and after his accession to the title in 1572. A later iteration was active throughout the 1580s, playing at Court in 1580-1, 1583, and 1585-6. And "active" was the key word: they were a troupe of acrobats, led by John Symons "the Tumbler." In 1588 the company went through a re-organization: Symons and the other tumblers left for a competing troupe, Queen Elizabeth's Men. Lord Strange's became a company more devoted to acting; William Kempe, Thomas Pope, and George Bryan, all future Lord Chamberlain's Men, may have joined the company at this time.
Lord Strange's Men were associated with the Lord Admiral's Men from 1590 to 1594; in the winter of 1591 Strange's Men gave six performances at Court. They were also performing at The Theatre, and perhaps at the Curtain as well. The "plot" of one of their plays, The Seven Deadly Sins, survives from this era, with a cast list that includes Richard Burbage, William Sly, Richard Cowley, and Augustine Phillips, more Lord Chamberlain's Men of the future.
In November 1589, the Lord Mayor of London ordered the company not to stage any performances within the city. In response, Strange's Men immediately went to the Cross Keys Inn to mount a performance.
Between February and June 1592 they were at Henslowe's Rose Theatre, where they acted a repertory of 23 plays that included one or more of Shakespeare's Henry VI trilogy. They gave three more Court performances in the winter of 1592-3; but on January 28 of 1593 bubonic plague broke out again in London, an outbreak so severe that it would disrupt the entire framework of professional theatre in the capital. A combination of Strange's and Admiral's actors, led by Edward Alleyn, toured the countryside in 1593-4, visiting Kent, Southampton, Bath, Bristol, Shrewsbury, and perhaps to York and Chester before turning south again to Leicester and Coventry.
When Ferdinando Stanley died in April 1594, the company was still touring, in East Anglia and Hampshire. They returned to London in June, for the plague had abated; and they found a new patron in Lord Hunsdon, the Lord Chamberlain. They were playing with the Admiral's Men yet again in the first half of June, at the theatre in Newington Butts; but thereafter the two companies went separate ways. William Shakespeare had joined them by the end of the year; he was with them for Court performances on Dec. 26 and 27, 1594.
Interesting Facts: A law called The Sumptuary Law was created to stop anybody of a lower social standard from wearing any clothes that suggested that they were of a higher social standard. As you can imagine, this dealt a heavy blow to Lord Strange's Mens' acting, but the law was soon altered by the Queen to allow troupes of actors to wear clothes of a higher rank.
[edit] References
- Halliday, F. E. A Shakespeare Companion 1564-1964, Baltimore, Penguin, 1964.
