The Blackfriars Boys, 1600–1613, and the King’s Revels Boys, 1607–1608

AbstractThe company of boys that in 1600 found its playhouse in the Blackfriars venture which, four years previously, had been lost by the Chamberlain’s Men, had an ironist of sorts behind it. Henry Evans, a scrivener and entrepreneur, had worked with a group of Chapel Children at Farrant’s Blackfriars in the 1580s. He was payee at court in December 1584 for the company that was then briefly known as Oxford’s Children. His earlier time with the Chapel Children may have prompted him to set up a new company in the new Blackfriars playhouse which he chose to call ‘the Children of the Chappell’. He was relying on people’s memories to secure him a place in the exclusive neighbourhood that had brought down a ban on the playhouse four years earlier, and was using the familiar old name for the players from a royal choir-school to which he had no right. This chapter looks at the history of the Blackfriars Boys, their performances between 1600 and 1613, the plays they performed, the playhouses where they performed, and their travelling records.