You Wouldn't Want to Be a Shakespearean Actor

It's 1594 and you are a young boy in London with dreams of the stage. When you finally join a company of players, the reality of being a Shakespearean actor is far tougher than you imagined. You rehearse endlessly, earn little or no money and must memorise dozens of roles at once - all while performing outdoors for noisy audiences who might cheer, jeer or throw food.

Because women are banned from the stage, you are trained to play female parts, squeezed into corsets and judged on how convincingly you can walk, speak and gesture like a lady. When plague sweeps through London and the theatres close, you are forced to take to the road, performing wherever you can to survive. Back at the Globe Theatre, dangers still lurk at every turn, from thieves in the crowd to real cannons setting the theatre ablaze.

Told in the trademark second-person voice of the You Wouldn't Want to Be... series, this book combines dark humour, vivid historical detail and David Antram's energetic illustrations to bring the world of Shakespeare's theatre thrillingly to life, all supported by a glossary and index for confident learning.