11 May, 1592 - Hieronimo

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

Henslowe writes: R at Jeronymo the 9 maye 1592 ... xxvj^s 

In modern English: Received at Hieronimo, 11^th May, 1592 ... 26 shillings 

Woodcut from the 1615 edition of The Spanish Tragedy.

Today, Lord Strange's Men gave another performance of Hieronimo, which is almost certainly an alternate title for Thomas Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy, a play that they had previously performed just over a week ago. You can read more about this play in the entry for the 14th of March. Once again, the company performed it as a stand-alone play, rather than pairing it with its companion piece, The Spanish Comedy.

The company is continuing its pattern of performing The Spanish Tragedy approximately once a week. Today's performance continued the fairly average box office that the play has been receiving of late. In previous posts, I've pondered whether the The Spanish Tragedy may have been more popular when performed the day after The Spanish Comedy. The list below suggests that this may have been true, if you ignore the aberration on 24th April. I'm thus starting to think the company should have hired me as a consultant.

• Tuesday, 14th March - 71 shillings (performed the day after the Comedy)
• Monday, 20th March - 38 shillings (performed as an individual play)
• Friday, 31st March - 60 shillings (Easter Week; performed the day after the Comedy)
• Friday, 7th April - 26 shillings (performed as an individual play)
• Friday, 14th April - 33 shillings (performed as an individual play)
• Monday, 24th April - 28 shillings (performed one working day after the Comedy, but with Sunday interrupting)
• Tuesday, 2nd May - 34 shillings (performed as an individual play)
• Thursday, 11th May - 26 shillings (performed as an individual play)

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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