Boy Player - Famous Boy Players

Famous Boy Players

• Christopher Beeston was perhaps the greatest success story among the child actors (at least in worldly terms). He continued his acting career into his maturity, became a theatre manager, and by the 1620s and '30s was arguably the most influential man in the world of London theatre.
• Nathan Field was another success story of the children's companies. In Bartholomew Fair, Jonson hailed him as the "best" of the young actors ("Which is your best actor, your Field?"). As an adult, Field acted with the King's Men, and wrote creditable plays as well.
• Solomon Pavy became one of the Children of the Chapel in 1600, at the age of ten. He acted in Jonson's Cynthia's Revels and The Poetaster. When he died prematurely in 1603, Jonson wrote an epitaph for him, praising Pavy's talent for playing old men.
• Alexander Cooke was the boy who is thought to have created many of Shakespeare's heroines on stage. He remained with the King's Men as an adult actor.
• Joseph Taylor graduated from the Children of the Chapel, via Lady Elizabeth's Men and the Duke of York's/Prince Charles' Men, to replace the late Richard Burbage as the leading man of the King's Men. He played Hamlet, Othello, and all the major Shakespearean roles.
• Stephen Hammerton was a prominent boy actor with the King's Men in the last decade of English Renaissance theatre, 1632–42.
• Hugh Clark was a noted boy player in the 1625–30 period.
• Charles Hart started out as a boy player with the King's Men, earning fame for his portrayal of the Duchess in Shirley's The Cardinal (1641). He became a leading man and a star of the stage during the Restoration.
• Theophilus Bird started as a boy player; like Hart he resumed his career as an adult actor when the theatres re-opened in 1660.
• Edward Kynaston was the last prominent boy actor; he worked during the Restoration.