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Updated: June 13, 2025
A year later, when his friend Field had been admitted a member of the Stationers' Company, Shakespeare found his employment inside one of the two theatres probably the house in Shoreditch; some writers have said that his first work there was that of a call-boy.
The white-washed wall, the glare of the raw gas, the low monotonous voice of the reading-boy, like one studying a part, or perhaps like the murmur of the distant audience; the boy coming in asking for "copy" or proof, like the call-boy, with his "Curtain's going up, gentlemen."
There were two candles in this room, one on each side; the call-boy had entered, and, poking about for something, knocked down and broke one of these. "Awkward imp!" cried a velvet page. "I'll go to the Treasury for another, ma'am," said the boy pertly, and vanished with the fractured wax. I take advantage of the interruption to open Mr. Vane's mind to the reader.
James Burbage was owner of "The Theatre," and it was in his time, we may presume, that Shakespeare acted as ostler and call-boy. But he must have risen up from the ranks at no small pace when his gifts became well known, for not only do we find him a regular member of the company, but a friend of the leading members, men like Richard Burbage, son of the proprietor, and Augustus Phillips.
Hahn called him vaguely, "Heh, boy!" but he grew to know him later as Wallie. From errand-boy, office-boy, call-boy he had become, by that time, a sort of unofficial assistant stage manager. No one acknowledged that he was invaluable about the place, but he was.
The dress rehearsal for Margaret's début was not half over yet, but she had already the dominating tone of the successful prima donna, and talked of sending at once for the redoubtable manager, as if she were talking about scolding the call-boy.
The few minutes were nearly up, and the call-boy and the dresser had met in several consultations with regard to the difficulty of getting Miss Lester on to the stage in time, before Mr. Harker's explanations were through.
"We dare not trust him," said the Major, "Lord bless you, when the call-boy would sing out for Captain Beaugarde in the second act, we'd find that he had Levanted with our best slashed trowsers, and a bird of paradise feather in his cap."
Once, whilst playing at the Court Theatre, he noticed the call-boy constantly poring over a book. Cecil, glancing over it, was surprised to find that it was not The Boy Highwayman of Hampstead, but a treatise on Algebra. The call-boy told him that he was endeavouring to educate himself, with a view to going out to India.
Just as he finished, the call-boy came; so, haw-hawing like a demon, he went rattling and clanking out like a crate of loose castings, and I knew nothing more. It was some minutes before I came to, and then I opened my eyes just in time to see Sir Gareth fetch him an awful welt, and I unconsciously out with the prayer, "I hope to gracious he's killed!"
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