In the 1623 folio edition of Shakespeare's Hamlet an exchange takes place between Hamlet and ‘Rosincrance’ (sic) on traditions of playing, presumably in the Elsinore of the play's setting, though many have identified a direct allusion to playing practices in Shakespeare's contemporary London:

This exchange (which does not appear in earlier printed quarto editions of the play) has proved a rich seam of conjecture for theatre scholars. The topical reference (at least in the early years of the play's performances) appears to be to the particular phenomenon of the children-only companies which had their roots in choir schools but which by the time of Hamlet were already becoming more professional and commercialised, and which took up residence at St Paul's and at the Blackfriars and the Whitefriars Theatres, most notably in the first decade of the seventeenth century. The Children of Paul's, the Children of the Chapel and, later, the Children of the Queen's Revels became associated with particular kinds of repertory and particular kinds of playing style that bear more detailed attention in understanding how certain early modern plays might have operated on the stage in their initial performances. This case study builds, then, on important recent work in the area of ‘repertory studies’ which argues for company-based understandings of bodies of plays that were commissioned and authored at this time rather than a single-author focus which tends to extract us from deeper consideration of specific contexts and contingencies that shape the success of certain genres and styles of playing at particular times.