Burbage Family and the Shakespeare Business Strategy

This blog explores the business-side of Shakespeare, with a central focus on the Bard and his works as a product.  Learn more about this central theme from a previous post.  

In yesterday's post, I suggested that although I've made some interesting observations about Shakespeare's probable business motivations, I had yet to find conclusive research to demonstrate this.  However, today I tackled my research with an excellent source, The Bedford Companion to Shakespeare (source info), and I found some useful information about the Theater Companies of Shakespeare time, including information about profit, business competition, and appealing to audiences.  In this post, I'll offer information about the following: 1) some of the key figures of the Theater Companies; 2) Shakespeare's participation in the business side of things; 3) insights regarding the performances that contributed to developing Shakespeare into a great product.

The Men in Charge

The theater companies were, in a literal sense, business companies.  The shareholders of a company would plan a production, incurring costs such as hiring actors and preparing stage props, and generate revenue with the performances.  And of course the various companies competed with one another.  In Shakespeare's time, there were two major companies, the Lord Admiral's Men and the Lord Chamberlain's Men, managed by Philip Henslowe and James Burbage, respectively.  The two companies competed for location, audience, content (plays), and in general, revenue.  Since Shakespeare was affiliated with the Lord Chamberlain's Men, I'll focus mainly on Burbage.

As a businessman, Burbage was known for his shrewd business acumen.  Specifically, he accomplished two feats: 1) he consolidated the Lord Chamberlain's men, and 2) he directed the construction of the Globe theater, with the remains of the Theater.  In an earlier post, I had hypothesized that Shakespeare was an entrepreneurial genius.  My new knowledge of Burbage suggests that while Shakespeare might take credit for the content, maybe Burbage deserves credit for strategic marketing.

Shakespeare's Business Role

When I learned that the theatrical companies were owned by shareholders, my immediate reaction was that Shakespeare simply sold the plays to the companies and they were responsible for performance success.  But I soon learned that I was wrong, because Shakespeare himself was a shareholder.  Whereas other playwrights might sell their plays to a company, Shakespeare wrote specifically for the Lord Chamberlain's Men because he had vested interest in their performance success.  This understanding of Shakespeare's business involvement gives support to one of my earlier arguments, that Shakespeare wrote to particular demographics because he was motivated by the potential revenue.

Product Development

As a shareholder of the company, Shakespeare had particular knowledge and resources that another playwright may not have.  For example, he was able to write his plays to the strengths of the particular actors in his company.  For example, Richard Burbage, the son of James Burbage, was uniquely talented in tragic roles, so Shakespeare wrote to this strength.  Some of the original manuscripts that Shakespeare wrote even used the names of actors, rather than the names of characters, to designate roles.  I imagine that this really allowed Shakespeare to maximize the success of his plays.

Thanks to the Bedford Companion to Shakespeare, I believe there is a strong argument that Shakespeare was largely motivated by the bottom-line and some of his success can be attributed to it.