Shortlisted for the STR Theatre Book Prize 2026

The first in-depth study of the career of Shakespearean ‘star’ actor and theatrical impresario, Richard Burbage.

This book draws on new archival research to offer the first comprehensive study of Burbage’s brilliant theatrical career and his ground-breaking contribution to the development of professional theatre as co-founder and owner of the Globe Theatre and a co-owner and manager of the Second Blackfriars Theatre. Richard Burbage is best known for becoming the leading actor in Shakespeare’s acting company, the Lord Chamberlain’s (later, the King’s) players, and as the man for whom Shakespeare created some of his most memorable leading roles, including Hamlet, Othello and King Lear. He was one of the first ‘star’ actors whose reputation came to transcend the roles he performed and who played a pivotal part in the success of London’s theatre in Shakespeare’s day.

Siobhan Keenan begins by tracing Burbage’s early life in Shoreditch, and the emergent theatrical community of which he was a part, before moving on to explore his growing reputation as a player and theatre manager, first as a member of the newly-formed Lord Chamberlain’s Players (1594), through to his establishment as one of the leading actors of his era as chief player with the King’s Men and co-owner of the Globe and Blackfriars Theatres.

Burbage’s influence on the era’s leading professional playwrights, including, most notably, Shakespeare, but also contemporaries such as Ben Jonson and John Webster, is examined alongside an assessment of his wider impact on early modern acting traditions and his cultural legacy as a Shakespearean star actor and early theatrical entrepreneur.

Prizes

Short-listed for Theatre Book Prize 2026 (UK)

With an abundance of rich detail from the period, Keenan does more than merely shift the spotlight from Shakespeare to his leading actor. Along the way to telling the story of the significant impact of Richard Burbage and his family on the Elizabethan and Jacobean stage, Keenan also invites us regularly to stop and look around, setting the scene and filling Burbage’s world with the players, playhouse and partners that made this a golden age for theatre. * Laurie Johnson, University of Southern Queensland, Australia *
Richly detailed and thoroughly researched. * The Times Literary Supplement *
Scholarly, judicious, and consistently interesting. * Cahiers Élisabéthains *

Siobhan Keenan is Professor of Shakespeare and Renaissance Literature at De Montfort University, Leicester, UK, where she is also Associate Dean Research and Innovation for the Arts, Design and Humanities Faculty.