People associated with Shakespeare

Richard Burbage (6 January 1567 – 12 March 1619) is considered the first great actor of English theatre.

William Kempe (died 1603), commonly referred to as Will Kemp, was an English actor and dancer specialising in comic roles and best known for having been one of the original players in early dramas by William Shakespeare.

Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton KG (6 October 1573 – 10 November 1624), (pronunciation uncertain: /ˈraɪzli/ "Rizely" (archaic), /ˈrɒtsli/ (present-day) and /ˈraɪəθsli/ have been suggested), was the only son of Henry Wriothesley, 2nd Earl of Southampton, and Mary Browne, daughter of Anthony Browne, 1st Viscount Montagu.

Richard Field (or Feild) (1561–1624) was a printer and publisher in Elizabethan London, best known for his close association with the poems of William Shakespeare, with whom he grew up in Stratford-upon-Avon.

Henry Condell (baptised 5 September 1576-died December 1627) was an actor in the King's Men, the playing company for which William Shakespeare wrote.

Robert Armin (c. 1563 – 1615) was an English actor, a member of the Lord Chamberlain's Men.

John Manningham (died 1622) was an English lawyer and diarist, a contemporary source for Elizabethan era and Jacobean era life and the London dramatic world, including William Shakespeare.

John or Jack Robinson was a tenant of William Shakespeare in London towards the end of the latter's life.

Sir Archibald Dennis Flower (1865–1950), was Chairman of the Trustees and Guardians of Shakespeare’s birthplace and of the Council of the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre.

Leonard Digges (/dɪɡz/; 1588 – 7 April 1635) was an accomplished Hispanist and minor poet, a younger son of the astronomer Thomas Digges (1545–95, and younger brother of Sir Dudley Digges (1583–1639). After his father's death in 1595, his mother married Thomas Russell of Alderminster, who was named by William Shakespeare as one of the two overseers of his will. There are varying opinions about the extent to which the young Leonard Digges might have been influenced in his choice of profession by his stepfather's association with Shakespeare; disagreements about whether he was or was not personally acquainted with the playwright have in recent years eclipsed discussion of the work of Digges himself.

Anne Whateley is the name given to a woman who is sometimes supposed to have been the intended wife of William Shakespeare before he married Anne Hathaway.

Cuthbert Burbage (c. 15 June 1565 – 15 September 1636) was an English theatrical figure, son of James Burbage, builder of the Theatre in Shoreditch and elder brother of the actor Richard Burbage.

George Wilkins (c.1576-1618) was an English dramatist and pamphleteer best known for his probable collaboration with Shakespeare on the play Pericles, Prince of Tyre.

Emilia Lanier (1569–1645), also spelled Lanyer, was the first Englishwoman to assert herself as a professional poet through her single volume of poems, Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum (1611).

Nahum Tate (/ˈneɪ.əm ˈteɪt/ NAY-əm TAYT; 1652 – 30 July 1715) was an Irish poet, hymnist and lyricist, who became England's poet laureate in 1692.

Robert Chester (flourished 1601) is the mysterious author of the poem Love's Martyr which was published in 1601 as the main poem in a collection which also included much shorter poems by William Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, George Chapman and John Marston, along with the anonymous "Vatum Chorus" and "Ignoto".

John Heminges (sometimes spelled Heming or Heminge) (bapt. 25 November 1566 – 10 October 1630) was an actor in the King's Men, the playing company for which William Shakespeare wrote.