Henslowe, Philip

Henslowe, Philip (?–1616), English impresario, who unlike most theatre people of his time was never an actor but derives his importance in the history of the Elizabethan stage from being the owner of the Fortune, Hope, and Rose playhouses. His stepdaughter Joan Woodward married Edward Alleyn, who on his father-in-law's death inherited his property and papers, the latter now being housed in Dulwich College. Among them is Henslowe's ‘diary’, a basic document for the study of Elizabethan theatre organization. Since some of the actors in the companies which used his theatres were contracted to Henslowe personally, and not, as was usually the case in Elizabethan companies, to their fellow actors, and as he paid the dramatists for their work, it follows that he had a large say in the choice of play and method of presentation. That his relations with his actors were not always cordial is proved by a document drawn up in 1615, in which he is accused of embezzling their money and unlawfully retaining their property. There is no note of how the controversy ended, but evidently Henslowe kept actors and dramatists in his debt in order to retain his hold over them. This arrangement was not as good, nor did it make for such stability, as that in force among other companies like the Chamberlain's Men, where the actors, led by their chief player Richard Burbage, were joint owners of their own theatre, responsible only to each other.