biography
pronunciation:
[kemp]
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (c.1550–c.1603)
|
| biography:
| Comic actor and dancer, who was famous in the Elizabethan theatre, and a member of the Lord Chamberlain's Men at the time they decided to build the Globe theatre (1598–9). In 1594 he was summoned, together with Richard Burbage and William Shakespeare, to act before Queen Elizabeth at Greenwich. The original Dogberry in Much Ado About Nothing, he spent the latter part of his life abroad. For some unknown reason he left London and morris-danced his way to Norwich, publishing an account of his feat in Nine Daies Wonder (1600). |
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