author
Thomas Heywood
d. 1641
A hugely prolific figure of the English stage, this actor-playwright helped shape late Elizabethan and early Jacobean drama. He is especially remembered for A Woman Killed with Kindness and for the lively, wide-ranging energy of his work.
1 Audiobook
Thomas Heywood
by Thomas Heywood
About the author
Active in London from the late 1590s, Thomas Heywood was an English playwright, actor, and author whose career stretched across one of the busiest periods in Renaissance theater. Sources agree that he was closely connected with the commercial stage, and later writers have often singled him out as one of the era’s most productive dramatists.
Heywood is best known today for A Woman Killed with Kindness, first performed in 1603, a domestic tragedy that remains his most famous play. He also wrote pageants, pamphlets, and prose works, including An Apology for Actors (1612), which offers a valuable defense of the stage and a glimpse into theatrical life in his time.
Details of his early life are not fully documented, though he is associated with Lincolnshire and is often said to have studied at Cambridge. He died on August 16, 1641, leaving behind a body of work that captures the variety, speed, and popular appeal of early modern English drama.