During the 16th century, boy actors enjoyed a great deal of popularity in the English theatre. Not only were teenage boys in demand to play the parts of women in the adult acting companies (as women were forbidden to act on the stage) but there also existed boy’s companies – where all of the actors were aged between eight and fourteen.

These boy’s companies arose out of the choir schools attached to the large cathedrals. Two famous companies were the Children of the Chapel Royal, based at Windsor, and the Children of St Paul’s, based at St Paul’s cathedral in London. But their performances, during the reign of Henry VIII, were limited to pageants and court events. It was not until 1576, when Richard Farrant, Master of the Children of the Chapel Royal, purchased the lease on a building in Blackfriars in the City of London, that the boy’s companies became professional acting troupes.

The boys were schooled in the traditional way, as well as in the art of acting and singing. Most, in fact, received as good an education as the sons of rich merchants who attended academic institutions.

Many of the boys, once their voices broke and their physiques changed, went on to become adult actors. It has been noted that a large number of the actors listed alongside William Shakespeare in the rolls of The Chamberlain’s Men, had once been boy actors.

The boy’s companies lost popularity, for various reasons, during the 1580’s and 1590’s but revived, for a while, under King James’ patronage in the first part of the 17th century. However, a performance by the Children of the Queen’s Revels of a play called Eastward Ho by the playwrights Jonson, Marston and Chapman, so angered King James that the company lost their royal patronage and the playwrights were imprisoned. Apparently, the King felt that the play was insulting to the Scots!

Boys continued to play female and “whimsical” (fairies, elves etc.) parts in adult company productions but, in the latter half of the 17th century, women were allowed to take to the stage and the day of the boy actor, playing anything other than a child, was over.

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