by Jinny Webber | Jun 20, 2017 | Boy actors on Shakespeare's stage, Sex and Gender in Shakespeare's England
“Acting is too dangerous a life for a woman, traveling about, meeting all sorts, wearing costumes, pretending and lying.” Jack Wilson in Chapter II, The Secret Player In his book Impersonations (Cambridge University Press, 1996), Stephen Orgel raises the question of...
by Jinny Webber | Jun 12, 2017 | Boy actors on Shakespeare's stage, Sex and Gender in Shakespeare's England |
Until some fifty years after the death of William Shakespeare, boy actors played women’s roles on the London stage. Alexander Cooke, the protagonist of The Secret Player and its sequels, is an historical actor listed in Shakespeare’s First Folio, the collection of his...