15 June, 1592 - A Knack to Know a Knave

Here's what Lord Strange's Men performed at the Rose playhouse on this day, 424 years ago...

Henslowe writes: R at the knacke to knowe a knave the 15 of June 1592 ... lij^s

In modern English: Received at The Knack to Know a Knave, 15^th June, 1592 ... 52 shillings

The knaves from an Italian
pack of cards, c.1490

Today, Lord Strange's Men revived A Knack to Know a Knave, their new comical morality play; you can read more about it in the entry for 10th June.

The company had premiered Knack only 6 days ago, to great success, and were clearly keen to stage it again as soon as possible. Today's performance received a handsome 52 shillings, way above the Rose average, and thus following the usual pattern in which new plays tended to perform strongly in their first few stagings.

Henslowe links

• Transcript of this page of the Diary (from W.W. Greg's 1904 edition)
• Facsimile of this page of the Diary (from the Henslowe-Alleyn Digitisation Project)

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