James Burbage, or Burbadge (1531 – 1597) was an English actor, theatre impresario, and theatre builder in the English Renaissance theatre. He built The Theatre, the facility famous as the first permanent dedicated theatre built in England since Roman times. Burbage seems also to have been involved in the erection of the Curtain Theatre, and, later, the Blackfriars Theatre, built in 1596 near the old Dominican friary.

Edmund Malone was the first person to suggest that James Burbage was connected with the Burbage family of Warwickshire: a forged letter of the nineteenth century maintained that Burbage and William Shakespeare were from the same county and were "almost of one town" — though there is in fact no valid evidence of this. Trained as a joiner, Burbage took up acting and was a member of Leicester's Men by 1572; he appears to have been a leader of that company by 1574. In 1576, Burbage partnered with his brother-in-law John Brayne (Burbage was married to Brayne's sister Ellen) to erect The Theatre.

(Burbage's brother-in-law John Brayne was also the man responsible for an earlier attempt at building a permanent theatre, the Red Lion in Mile End in 1567. That enterprise apparently did not survive its first year. The implication is that Burbage's experience as both actor and builder helped to make the second venture a success where the first had failed.)

Burbage and his family were settled in St. Leonard's parish in Shoreditch by 1576, with residence in Halliwell Street or Holywell Lane. Records list the baptism of a daughter, Alice (1576), and the burial of another daughter, Joan (1582). A third daughter, Helen, was buried at St. Anne's in Blackfriars (1595).

James Burbage's son Richard Burbage became one of the most celebrated actors of his era. Cuthbert Burbage, Richard's elder brother, followed in his father's footsteps as a theatre manager.

James Burbage was buried in Shoreditch on 2 February 1597; his widow Ellen was buried there on 8 May 1613.

References

1. Chambers, Vol. 2, p. 305.
2. Chambers, Vol. 2, p. 306.

• Chambers, E. K. The Elizabethan Stage. 4 Volumes, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1923.
• Halliday, F. E. A Shakespeare Companion 1564–1964. Baltimore, Penguin, 1964.