# Playwrights From Around Shakespeare's Time Other Than Shakespeare **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 14, 2007, 5:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/playwrights-from-around-shakespeares-time-other-than-shakespeare/407967 "2007-06-14T05:48:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2007, 5:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/playwrights-from-around-shakespeares-time-other-than-shakespeare/407967/1 "2007-06-14T05:48:28Z")
Are there any other playwrights from Shakespeare’s time, or anyway from times near to his time, whose plays get performed with any regularity today? Or even at all? -FrL- ---
**Author:** ![Cunctator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/43a26b/32.png) [@Cunctator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cunctator)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2007, 5:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/playwrights-from-around-shakespeares-time-other-than-shakespeare/407967/2 "2007-06-14T05:55:27Z")
John Webster. I saw a production of his work [The Duchess of Malfi](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duchess_of_malfi) a couple of years ago. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2007, 5:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/playwrights-from-around-shakespeares-time-other-than-shakespeare/407967/3 "2007-06-14T05:59:15Z")
I’m not sure how frequently his plays are performed these days, but Christopher Marlowe is the most immediate contemporary that comes to mind. ---
**Author:** ![brendon\_small](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/brendon_small/32/17101_2.png) [@brendon\_small](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brendon_small)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2007, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/playwrights-from-around-shakespeares-time-other-than-shakespeare/407967/4 "2007-06-14T06:22:02Z")
In my mind, John Webster, but not for the same play mentioned above. He wrote _The White Devil_, which is one of my favorites. This may not be something that is normally performed, but I have had discussions on it regularly and seen it performed once. Of course, I have taken several courses on 17th century literature already, so it’s popularity may be more in my study area than in reality. Also, the slightly less popular (IMHO) Cyril Tourneur. The play I read for class was _The Revenger’s Tragedy_. Since Middleton was mentioned, let me plug _The Changeling_. It’s a very interesting play. Brendon Small ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2007, 6:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/playwrights-from-around-shakespeares-time-other-than-shakespeare/407967/5 "2007-06-14T06:44:06Z")
The only Elizabethan playwright who had his collected works published in his lifetime was [Ben Johnson](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Jonson) (who also wrote an introduction to the Shakespeare [First Folio](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Folio)). His comedy [_Volpone_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volpone) is still produced today. A famous production at the Old Vic in 1972 starred Paul Scofield, Ben Kingsley, and John Gielgud. ---
**Author:** ![appleciders](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85f322/32.png) [@appleciders](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/appleciders)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2007, 7:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/playwrights-from-around-shakespeares-time-other-than-shakespeare/407967/6 "2007-06-14T07:08:51Z")
Christopher Marlowe was a contemporary of Shakespeare, probably a friend of his, and Marlowe’s _Tragical History of Doctor Faustus_ still gets performed with regularity. I saw it in a very good production about two years ago. That play is where the phrase “the face that launched a thousand ships” comes from. If you want to start a fight between Elizabethan scholars, you can even bring up the theory that Marlowe wrote at least some of Shakespeare’s plays. Miguel de Cervantes is not an English playwright but he is usually considered to be Shakespeare’s Spanish equivalent, and he died within a couple days of Shakespeare, if not on the same day (records are conflicting). His plays are still performed, but he’s most famous for his novel “Don Quixote”. ---
**Author:** ![betenoir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/258eb7/32.png) [@betenoir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/betenoir)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2007, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/playwrights-from-around-shakespeares-time-other-than-shakespeare/407967/7 "2007-06-14T14:42:34Z")
[QUOTE=Cunctator] John Webster. [/QUOTE] John Webster was one of the best there was. He was the author of Two major tragagies. The White Devil and The Duchesses of Malfi The White Devil and The Duchesses of Malfi… Thank you Echo and the Bunnymen ---
**Author:** ![Chez\_Guevara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/aeb1de/32.png) [@Chez\_Guevara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chez_Guevara)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2007, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/playwrights-from-around-shakespeares-time-other-than-shakespeare/407967/8 "2007-06-14T15:03:09Z")
Not a playwright but Sir Edmund Spencer (_circa_ 1552 - 1599) is worth a mention for his epic poem _The Faerie Queen_ (1590 & 1596). This work has often been interpreted as a play and still is, in small theatre companies at least. Confusingly and irrelevantly, there is also a ballet _The Faerie Queen_ but this is based on Shakespeare’s _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2007, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/playwrights-from-around-shakespeares-time-other-than-shakespeare/407967/9 "2007-06-14T15:37:19Z")
I’ve read lots of Christopher Marlowe and Ben Johnson (and saw a hilarious performance of “The Alchemist” years ago). There’s also Beaumont and Fletcher > **[Beaumont and Fletcher](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaumont_and_Fletcher)** > > Beaumont and Fletcher were the English dramatists Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher, who collaborated in their writing during the reign of James I (1603–25). > They became known as a team early in their association, so much so that their joined names were applied to the total canon of Fletcher, including his solo works and the plays he composed with various other collaborators including Philip Massinger and Nathan Field. > The first Beaumont and Fletcher folio of 1647 contained 35 plays; 53 pla... and Thomas Kyd > **[Thomas Kyd](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Kyd)** > > Thomas Kyd (baptised 6 November 1558; buried 15 August 1594) was an English playwright, the author of The Spanish Tragedy, and one of the most important figures in the development of Elizabethan drama. > Although well known in his own time, Kyd fell into obscurity until 1773 when Thomas Hawkins, an early editor of The Spanish Tragedy, discovered that Thomas Heywood, in his Apologie for Actors (1612), attributed the play to Kyd. A hundred years later, scholars in Germany and England began to shed... ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2007, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/playwrights-from-around-shakespeares-time-other-than-shakespeare/407967/10 "2007-06-14T15:58:49Z")
I’ve seen performances of plays by Jonson and Marlowe. Of course, the trouble is that, in comparison with Shakespeare, almost everyone suffers. ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2007, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/playwrights-from-around-shakespeares-time-other-than-shakespeare/407967/11 "2007-06-14T16:11:34Z")
How about “author unknown”? Ten years ago, or thereabouts, I saw a production of [Arden of Faversham](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arden_of_Faversham), which is conventionally dated to close to the beginning of Shakespeare’s career but which is almost certainly _not_ by Shakespeare. It’s not done very often; it’s mostly a curiosity. Nevertheless, it survives and is occasionally produced. Also, [this article](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Renaissance_theatre) may be of interest.