Endymion (play)

Endymion, the Man in the Moon is an Elizabethan era stage play, a comedy by John Lyly. The play provides a vivid example of the cult of flattery in the royal court of Queen Elizabeth I, and has been called "without doubt, the boldest in conception and the most beautiful in execution of all Lyly's plays."

The play's date of authorship is not known with certainty; it was acted at Greenwich Palace by the Children of Paul's, most likely on Candlemas, 2 February 1588.Endymion was entered into the Stationers' Register on 4 October 1591, and was first published soon after in a quarto printed by John Charlwood for Joan Broome (the widow of bookseller William Broome, who had published reprints of Lyly's Campaspe and Sapho and Phao earlier in 1591). It was published again in Six Court Comedies (1632), the first collected edition of Lyly's plays issued by Edward Blount.

Endymion is currently in a state of revival. The 2009 American Shakespeare Center's Young Company produced the first Original staging practices production of Endymion, under the direction of Brett Sullivan Santry, in an estimated 400 years. While the script was shortened, the performance included a cast of noteworthy young American actors including; Ben Lauer as Endymion, Mary Margaret Watkins as Cynthia, and Mariah Webb as Tellus.

A 2012 full production by the T24 Drama Society of the University of Kent took place, directed by Freddy Waller and starring John Davis as Endymion and Holly Morran as Cynthia.

As the title indicates, the play is based on the classical tale of Endymion; yet its connection with the myth is slight, and the work is mainly the product of Lyly's own imagination and taste. Lyly also seems to have borrowed some hints from the dialogue between the Moon and Venus written by Lucian. Elements in the comic subplot derive from the Italian Commedia dell'arte and the classical Latin comedy of Plautus and Terence.

...
Wikipedia