Journal Article

Trade, taverns, and touring players in seventeenth-century bristol

Astington, John H

2017

Overview

The from playbill: the early The 1630s accompanying preserved at photograph the British Library shows a (C.18.e.2[74]), playbill dating in a large folio volume of miscellaneous items.1 The bill, some five and three-quarters by seven and a half inches in size (146 mm x 190 mm), shows the characteristics of a once common form of cheap print, composed in the black-letter type which marked public proclamations, catching the eye with its ornamental border and decorated initial capital, and detailing the attractions of the announced show, featuring rope walking and dancing by infant phenomena, and various kinds of juggling and legerdemain. Wine Street, nominated in the manuscript addition at the top of the bill, was at the centre of medieval and early modern Bristol, a busy hub of trade, commerce, and civic life; somewhere along its length was the Rose, the designated venue for the show. Wolfe was an innholder, as well as a cutler; his playhouse was not an inn, but he may have got the idea of a dedicated performance space from a tradition of temporary theatrical activity at Bristol inns. in seventeenth- century Bristol culture inns otherwise appear to have been both important investments and common places of business: merchants met at inns to settle debts and arrange shared ventures. The playbill discussed here sheds further light not only on the career of William Vincent, the geographical scale of his activity, and the range of his performative and managerial skills, but also on the particular enterprise of the contemporary Bristol prosperous bourgeoisie, whose investment in the hospitality industry, as we now call it, extended to collaborating with travelling entertainers.

• Publisher: The Society for Theatre Research,Society for Theatre Research
• Subject: 17th century / Bars / Historical text analysis / History / Identification and classification / Skills / Theater programs