Possessing only quasi-amateur standing in the early 1500s, London's adult professional theater troupes became the basis for an enterprise that by the end of the century was to provide livelihoods for many stage players and businessmen and their families. William Ingram here reconstructs the economic and social history of this remarkable growth through the eyes of the participants themselves--actors, managers, and entrepreneurs, including such important figures as Jerome Savage, John Brayne, Henry Laneman, and James Burbage.