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The company, which is to say the Lord Chamberlain's Men and afterward the Kings' Men. The company would underwrite the initial costs of the production, the cost of the rehearsal space, the costumes, the script, the props, and then these would be paid from the box office receipts. The box office receipts were generally enough to pay these expenses, pay the owners of the theatre, pay the "hired men" or wage-earning actors, and still have plenty of profit which could be divided between the sharers of the company or retained to make the company's wealth larger. If a show failed to pay for its costs, the company could absorb the loss but of course like any business it could not continually lose money. Acting companies that did this went bankrupt.
The patron, the Lord Chamberlain or the King, had no financial obligations to the company. They just gave it legitimacy, and a powerful voice at court. (Lord Worcester used his political pull to get permission for his company, Lord Worcester's Men, to play in London playhouses along with the Admiral's and Chamberlain's Men)
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∙ 11y ago
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∙ 11y agoIt may be a surprise to you, but it was not the Lord Chamberlain, or later King James. Although these were the patrons of the acting companies Shakespeare worked for, they did not contribute a penny piece to the upkeep of the company or in payment of the actors. The actors were paid exclusively from the profits of the performances.
After the city theatres were closed for a long time in 1593-1594 due to plague, a number of acting companies went bankrupt. Some of them were so hard up they had to pawn their costumes. On no occasion did a patron bail them out. The patrons offered only one thing to the company: legitimacy. A company without a noble patron was acting outside of the law and was subject to prosecution.
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∙ 10y agoIt didn't actually work like that, at least not after 1594. Shakespeare was one of several partners in a theatrical company. The company, not Shakespeare, put on the plays. They rehearsed and put on a performance, and charged members of the public to see it. From that money they paid any hired actors, tiremen, or others who were to be paid a wage (Shakespeare was not one of them). Part of the money went to the owners of the theatre, who paid their expenses and divvied up the profit. (Shakespeare was sometimes one of these). The rest was used to pay any company expenses (props, costumes, new scripts etc.) and then divided among the partners (Shakespeare was one of these).
Before 1594, Shakespeare did not "put on plays". He wrote them and sold them to theatre companies. He also acted in various plays as a hired actor, being paid a wage for his performance by whatever company he was working for.
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∙ 12y agoFrom 1594 on, Shakespeare was the house playwright for the Lord Chamberlain's Men, afterward the King's Men. The company got the plays without paying an outside playwright which meant that the shareholders' profit went up. As the job of being an actor at the time was extremely time-consuming, Shakespeare probably was relieved of part of his acting duties to give him more time to write.
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∙ 12y agoGroundlings, people who stood to watch the play.
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∙ 11y agoGroundling or Groundlings
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What were people called that only paid a penny to see a Shakespeare performances?
The groundlings
How much did it cost a groundling to see a Shakespeare play?
A penny
What were groundlings in renaissance theater?
Poor laborers, tradesmen and their families, who paid a whole day's wage (one penny, which would be about 5 to 6 US dollars a day now...) to stand at the front of the theater to see Shakespeare's plays instead of sitting in a covered balcony up at the back.
Did children see Shakespeare's plays?
yes
What did rabelais and shakespeare write in to appeal to the common people?
The vernacular. Rabelais wrote in French, Shakespeare in English. In Shakespeare's case, writing in Latin would have been professional suicide, seeing as most of the people who paid to see his plays did not know Latin.
What were people called that only paid a penny to see a Shakespeare performances?
The groundlings
How much did the audience's pay for different types of tickets to see one of Shakespeare's play?
Globe audience's paid one penny
How much did it cost a groundling to see a Shakespeare play?
A penny
What were groundlings in renaissance theater?
Poor laborers, tradesmen and their families, who paid a whole day's wage (one penny, which would be about 5 to 6 US dollars a day now...) to stand at the front of the theater to see Shakespeare's plays instead of sitting in a covered balcony up at the back.
Did children see Shakespeare's plays?
yes
What did Rabelais and Shakespeare write in to appeal to common people?
The vernacular. Rabelais wrote in French, Shakespeare in English. In Shakespeare's case, writing in Latin would have been professional suicide, seeing as most of the people who paid to see his plays did not know Latin.
What did rabelais and shakespeare write in to appeal to the common people?
The vernacular. Rabelais wrote in French, Shakespeare in English. In Shakespeare's case, writing in Latin would have been professional suicide, seeing as most of the people who paid to see his plays did not know Latin.
How many plays did William Shakespeare write and what are the categories into which Shakespeare's plays were divided?
William Shakespeare wrote 38 plays. They are divided into comedies, histories and tragedies. See the related question for a full list of his plays.
What can you do at the globe theatre?
watch plays and see where Shakespeare worked
What were the names of the six plays that William wrote?
Shakespeare wrote thirty-eight plays, not six. See the related question to see the thirty-six plays.
Why in Shakespeare's days may you see the words players exit?
Shakespeare wrote plays. And when you write plays you include directions to the actors. When to get off the stage is one such direction.
Did Shakespeare make money with writing plays?
He must have sold his earliest plays directly to various playing companies. Playwrights in Shakespeare's day were not particularly well-paid as a rule, and many writers who relied on writing to live lived and died in poverty (Thomas Dekker for one).But Shakespeare was also an actor and later had an interest in the profits of the theatre company. What that meant was that he did not get paid money for the plays he wrote--he was the house playwright, and his plays automatically became the property of the company. But because they were good plays, and popular plays, people wanted to come to see them, and that meant more money at the box office and that meant more profits for the sharers in the company. So Shakespeare did make money out of his plays, and so did Burbage and Heminges and all the other sharers. And they all made money out of Burbage's acting as well.
