Shakespeare’s Boy Actors

Shakespeare's Boy Actors

In this course, Dr Harry McCarthy (University of Exeter) explores the use of boy actors in early modern England, and particularly in the plays of Shakespeare. In the first lecture we introduce the concept of ‘boy actors’ themselves, including the nature of ‘boyhood’ in early modern thought and their importance in both Shakespeare’s and other acting companies. In the second lecture, we think about the kind of skills boys brought to theatrical performance in Shakespeare’s day, before turning in the third lecture to consider the importance of costume in boy actors’ representations of female characters on stage. In the fourth lecture, we think about the homoerotic appeal of boy actors, before turning in the fifth lecture to consider of the most demanding roles that Shakespeare ever wrote for a boy actor: Cleopatra in Antony and Cleopatra.

Shakespeare’s Boy Actors

In this lecture we introduce the concept of ‘boy actors’ in early modern England, focusing in particular on: (i) the presence of women in some performance contexts in early modern Europe, e.g. in court masques, in taverns as acrobats and rope-dancers, etc.; (ii) the lack of women on the professional public stage before 1661; (iii) the use of ‘boy actors’ to play female characters (e.g. Lady Macbeth, Cleopatra) as well as characters written as boys (e.g. the princes in Richard III); (iv) the concept of ‘boyhood’ in Shakespeare’s time, what it meant to be a ‘boy’, and the average age of a leading boy player in Shakespeare’s company; (v) the importance of ‘boy actors’ in Shakespeare’s company, and the frequency with which ‘boy actors’ would go on to play adult male roles, e.g. Alexander Cooke, Robert Gough, Richard Robinson, John Rice; (vi) the legal status of ‘boy actors’ as apprentices, and the operation of master-apprentice dynamics in the plays themselves, e.g. the frequency with which ‘boy actors’ would appear with their ‘master’ on stage; and (vii) the presence of all-children companies such as the Children of the Revels, described by Rosencrantz in Hamlet as ‘little eyases’ (i.e. little birds, 2.2.338).