28 March, 1592 - Harry VI

Here's what Lord Strange's Men performed at the Rose playhouse on this day, 424 years ago...

Henslowe writes: R at harey the vj the 28 of marche 1591 ... iij^ll viij^s

In modern English: Received at Harry VI, 28^th March 1592 ... £3 and 8 shillings

1540s portrait of King
Henry VI

Today, Lord Strange's Men performed Harry VI again. This play was almost certainly Shakespeare's First Part of Henry VI; you can read more about it in the blog entry for 3rd March.

After performing this play every few days for a while, the company had left it to rest for nearly two weeks. This seems to have been a good decision, because today's performance produced spectacular box office, almost as high as that of the premiere performance. Another factor may be that England was now in Easter Week, and the festive atmosphere may have encouraged more theatregoing.  Either way, Harry VI was clearly still capable of being a blockbuster, despite its slump a fortnight ago.

• Friday, 3rd March - 75 shillings
• Tuesday, 7th March - 60 shillings
• Saturday, 11th March - 47 shillings
• Thursday, 16th March - 31 shillings
• Tuesday, 28th March - 68 shillings

Henslowe links

• Transcript of this page of the Diary (from W.W. Greg's 1904 edition)
• Facsimile of this page of the Diary (from the Henslowe-Alleyn Digitisation Project)

Comments?

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