What plays did people watch in the 16th century that were not by Shakespeare?

Answer 1

The 16th century saw the birth of English drama as a real art form. At the beginning of the century there was nothing but Miracle plays played at fairs. Yet in the middle of the century, probably inspired by Roman models, actual new plays began to be written. The 1860s saw the comedies Ralph Roister Doister and Gammer Gurton's Needle as well as the tragedy (in blank Verse) Gorboduc. By the 1580s, dramas had become much more sophisticated. The plays of Christopher Marlowe (the two parts of Tamburlaine, Doctor Faustus, The Jew of Malta, and Edward II), Kyd's Spanish Tragedy, Peele's Edward I and The Battle of Alcazar, Greene's Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, and works by Nashe were all popular.

Shakespeare's plays came on the scene in the 1590s but by then playwriting was a major business: there were three major playing companies and a number of smaller minor ones, all clamoring for new plays and getting them at a rate of two a month, if Henslowe's records are typical. Apart from Shakespeare, important playwrights included Ben Jonson(Every Man in his Humour, Volpone, the Alchemist, Bartholomew Fair), Thomas Dekker (The Shoemaker's Holiday), Thomas Middleton (The Revenger's Tragedy), Beaumont and Fletcher (The Knight of the Burning Pestle), Thomas Heywood (Edward IV) and Henry Chettle. And for every play from this era for which we know the author, there must be three whose author is unknown, giving rise to endless academic battles, three more for which we know only the title and a half-dozen more which have totally disappeared. Some anonymous plays are Edward III (some say early Shakespeare, others say Peele), Arden of Faversham (Kyd, Marlowe or Shakespeare?), and Thomas of Woodstock (Rowley?).