ABSTRACT
The Admiral’s Men’s other valuable asset was Edward Alleyn, the leading actor in England. Plays mounted by the Admiral’s Men include The Life of Sir John Oldcastle, a two-part pseudo-history play by Michael Drayton, Richard Hathaway, Anthony Munday and Robert Wilson, which opens with a street brawl interrupted by the appearance of the sheriff. But he is only partially able to stop it: ‘Helter skelter again’, says the stage direction after his intervention. Admiral’s authors included John Day, who was expelled from Cambridge University in 1593, and who five years later was collaborating with or revising plays by Henry Chettle, William Haughton, Thomas Dekker and others. Dekker was one of Philip Henslowe’s most prolific writers: in 1598 he had a hand in no fewer than sixteen plays Henslowe bought. His best solo plays were performed at the Rose, even though he complained of the theatre’s ‘small circumference’ in Old Fortunatus.
