How many plays did William Shakespeare play or appear in?

Answer 1

We cannot be sure. Many people believe that he retired from acting before he retired from playwriting and the theatre business, so we do not know exactly when he stopped. Nor do we know exactly when he started. And we do not know all of the plays that the companies he worked with performed. People think that Shakespeare's company only performed his plays, but that is not true. Two of the plays we are completely sure that Shakespeare played in are by Ben Jonson: Sejanus and Every Man Out of his Humour. We do know that the theatre companies of those days tended to put on two new plays a month when they were in full swing. Over a twenty to twenty-five year acting career, that is hundreds and hundreds of plays.