Entertainment / Literature / Sharers: In the Renaissance, these were senior actors holding business shares in the stock of a theatrical company. In such a joint-stock arrangement, the shareholders would pool their funds to buy supplies, make costumes and props, hire works, and write new plays. They would share profits (and losses!) Equally. Greenblatt notes that, 'Shakespeare was not only a longtime 'sharer' of the Lord Chamberlain's Men but, from 1599, a 'housekeeper,' the holder of a one-eighth share in the Globe playhouse' (1141).
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