Philip Henslowe and John Heminges: profits and the playhouse, 1587—1630

Faiers, Meryl Anne ORCID: 0000-0001-9088-8485 (2025). Philip Henslowe and John Heminges: profits and the playhouse, 1587—1630. University of Birmingham. Ph.D.

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Abstract

This thesis takes an original approach to a frequently overlooked aspect of professional London theatre in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries: its undoubted commercial success, especially for those who owned the playhouses. A forensic examination of the playhouse careers of Philip Henslowe and John Heminges demonstrates that there was the potential for very substantial profits to be made through owning and operating playhouses. Uniquely, the thesis brings together documentary and archaeological evidence to estimate audience capacities for Henslowe’s Rose and Fortune, and the playhouses of the King’s Men (of which John Heminges was a co-owner), the Globe and the Blackfriars. Using simple spreadsheet templates (contained in an Appendix) current commercial theatre practice is then applied to these audience capacity figures to create estimates of the maximum amount each playhouse could earn at a single performance, or week, or year.
Chapter 1, The Context, provides the background for Henslowe’s and Heminges’s playhouse careers with research into their wider lives and networks to determine the relative importance of the playhouse to each. Chapter 2, Philip Henslowe – Playhouse Entrepreneur, traces Henslowe’s development from novice builder of the Rose to intensely disliked owner and operator of the Hope at the end of his life, and offers calculations of the costs of constructing and running his playhouses. Chapter 3, John Heminges – ‘Business Manager’ of the King’s Men, views the well-known narrative of Shakespeare’s acting company through the growing responsibilities of Heminges as actor, business manager, co-owner of playhouses and, potentially, operator of ancillary sales at the Globe and Blackfriars. Chapter 4, Income and Profitability, synthesizes the information from the preceding chapters to produce estimates of income and profit, both corporate and individual. It calculates potential figures for Henslowe and his son-in-law and partner Edward Alleyn at the Rose and Fortune and for individual members of the King’s Men at their playhouses: Richard Burbage, William Shakespeare and John Heminges. The resulting estimates provide an original method of demonstrating the financial success of the industry as a whole and illustrate that, when the playhouses were operating in a period of stability, there was what Heminges himself described as ‘good yearly profit’ to be made.

Type of Work:

Thesis (Doctorates > Ph.D.)

Award Type:

Doctorates > Ph.D.

Supervisor(s):