ABSTRACT
An owner of a Ming private theatre typically bought children from poorer families to start his troupe and customarily released them around the age of twenty. Legally, the performers were bondservants, and the troupe owner was their master. Legal standing aside, relationships between the owner and his performers in a private troupe reflected much of the owner’s enthusiasm for theatre and his psycho-physiological needs in it; often performers became the symbols of such enthusiasm and needs.
