ABSTRACT
A horse-drawn wagon carried their props, costumes, playbooks and other paraphernalia, but they rarely covered more than ten miles in a day. At the towns or villages where they paused to perform, the players seem sometimes to have received free food and lodging from their hosts, even though it seems they rarely booked their appearances in advance. The actors might perform each of the plays in their repertoire in one town and also hope to present one or more performances at the country houses of any landed gentry nearby, before they moved on. In 1581 a crown patent was granted to Edmund Tilney, Master of the Revels, to licence all plays: he was awarded extensive powers to insist on changes to playscripts, or even to ban plays which offended. The profession of playwright was effectively unknown, though by the 1580s a number of poets began to write for the stage.
