The various theatrical companies in Elizabethan and Jacobean England were constantly changing and reorganizing so the full tale of their histories is quite complex. One thing is constant, however: each company had to have a noble or royal patron. The patron was nominally the employer of the actors, so that they could not be prosecuted under the laws pertaining to vagrancy, although the patrons did not have anything to do with the day-to-day operation of the companies, which were quite independent.

The earliest companies began to form in the 1570s. The Earl of Leicester's Men were a notable early company. Competition between the companies and their patrons became so fierce that the Queen herself sponsored a company and raided all the other companies for the best actors. It was at this time that the first genuine star came to the fore, the clown Richard Tarlton, who was the mainstay of the Queen's Men for the rest of his career.

The Queen's taste ran to clowns and acrobats, but the general taste was less lowbrow. Eventually in the late 1580s a new company came to the fore. Managed by the theatre impresario Philip Henslowe, led by the best actor of the day, Edward Alleyn, and having the performing rights to the plays of Christopher Marlowe, the Lord Admiral's Men were number one, and people packed the Rose Theatre in Southwark to hear them play.

Other companies of this period were Lord Strange's Men, Lord Sussex's Men, Oxford's Men, and Lord Pembroke's Men.

In 1593, a protracted outbreak of plague in London, put a severe strain on the finances of the playing companies, who were obliged to go on tour of country towns rather than play the much more profitable London theatres. Several companies collapsed completely, including Lord Strange's Men. In 1594, some of the players from Strange's company, including Richard Burbage, the second-most-famous actor of the time, and Will Kempe, who was taking over from Tarlton as the leading clown of the time, as well as actors from other companies, formed a new company called the Lord Chamberlain's Men under the patronage of Lord Hunsdon, the Lord Chamberlain. Other former Strange's Men formed a company called Lord Derby's Men.

The Chamberlain's company, acting out of Burbage's Theatre and later out of the Curtain Playhouse, aided by Burbage's acting and the plays of William Shakespeare, also a member of the company, came by the end of the century to supplant the Lord Admiral's Men as the premier company in London.

In 1597 came an event of great significance for the theatre community in London. The Swan Theatre was built in Southwark by Francis Langley as a rival to the Henslowe and Burbage theatres. Langley established an exclusive contract with Pembroke's Men for them to use the Swan, and they started performing regularly. However, in midsummer they staged a play called The Isle of Dogs by Ben Jonson and Thomas Nashe which so offended the censors that Jonson and some of the actors were jailed and the Swan Theatre was closed. The incident spelled the end of the Swan Theatre, Pembroke's Men, and Langley as an impresario. The only person to escape the debacle relatively unscathed was Jonson.

In 1599-1600, the so-called War of the Theatres (which was basically Ben Jonson and John Marston being rude with each other) brought forward two groups of child actors, The Children of St. Paul's and the Children of the Chapel. The child companies were given more latitude in the types of drama they performed, and were also allowed to perform in the city itself, rather than just in the suburbs. These facts gave them a commercial advantage, and they attracted scripts from playwrights who wished to write in a more satirical vein. Middleton, Dekker, Marston, Jonson, Chapman, and Beaumont and Fletcher all contributed plays to these companies. The impact of the children's companies is reflected in Shakespeare's play Hamlet where Hamlet's conversation with his school chums Rosencrantz and Guildenstern accurately shows the situation in the theatrical world of the day. The Children of the Chapel acted out of the Blackfriars Theatre, an indoor theatre in the city.

At the same time, the Chamberlain's Men built a new theatre, the Globe, in Southwark near the Rose. The Rose was by this time showing its age, and was besides rather small for the crowds the Admiral's Men wanted to draw. The Admiral's Men therefore hired Peter Street, the builder who had built the Globe, to build them a newer larger theatre in the northern suburbs. This was the Fortune Theatre, built in 1601.

The Rose, now abandoned by the Admiral's Men, became the home to the company who were to become the third most significant acting company in London, after the Lord Chamberlain's Men and the Lord Admiral's Men. This was Lord Worcester's Men, who were led by actor/playwright Thomas Heywood, and included a number of actors who had, for one reason or another, left the Chamberlain's Men, including Will Kempe. In 1602 they absorbed Oxford's Men, just two years before Oxford's death.

Upon the death of Queen Elizabeth in 1603, many of the companies had a change of patronage. In the Elizabethan period, most of the patrons were nobles; after the accession of King James and his family of theatre fans, many of these companies had Royal Patronage. Patronage of the Lord Chamberlain's Men was taken by the King himself; they became the King's Men. The Lord Admiral's Men became Prince Henry's Men after Henry, Prince of Wales. Worcester's Men became Queen Anne's Men. King James's daughter Elizabeth patronized a new company made up of former members of the two child companies and later also from a third called the Children of Whitefriars. Lady Elizabeth's Men, as they were called, played at the Swan and later at Henslowe's new theatre, the Hope.

King James's second son, Charles, who would eventually become King Charles I, also sponsored a company called the Duke of York's Men, and later Prince Charles's Men. They played at the Hope and also at the Red Bull Theatre, former home of Worcester's Men.

In the Jacobean era, a new impresario came to the fore, called Christopher Beeston. Beeston had been a child actor with the Chamberlain's Men, but moved to Worcester's in 1602. His morals were highly questionable: he was accused of rape, but never brought to trial, and was frequently sued for fraudulent and unsavoury business practices. His rapacity probably did in the Queen Anne's company (formerly Worcester's). He opened a new theatre called the Cockpit and also ran the Red Bull, and formed a new company of boy actors, but all of this happened after the retirement and death of William Shakespeare in 1616.

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