Shirley, James | Ronald Huebert (essay date 1981)
Ronald Huebert (essay date 1981)
SOURCE: Huebert, Ronald. “The Staging of Shirley's The Lady of Pleasure.” In The Elizabethan Theatre IX, edited by G. R. Hibbard, pp. 41-59. Port Credit, Ont.: P. D. Meany, 1981.
[In the following essay, Huebert reconstructs the first staging of The Lady of Pleasure.]
The first performance of The Lady of Pleasure took place in late October or early November, 1635. The play was licensed for performance on 15 October,1 and by 5 or 6 November it had attracted sufficient notice to deserve mention in John Greene's diary. Referring to the party of guests which gathered to celebrate his sister's wedding, Greene wrote as follows: “wee were at a play, some at cockpit, some at blackfriers. The play at cockpit was Lady of pleasure, at blackfriers the conspiracy.”2 A month later, on 8 December, Sir Humphrey Mildmay recorded in his account book the expenditure of 1 shilling...
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