Gallathea

Gallathea or Galatea is an Elizabethan era stage play, a comedy by John Lyly. The first record of the play's performance was at Greenwich Palace on New Year's Day, 1588 where it was performed before Queen Elizabeth I and her court by the Children of St Paul's , a troupe of boy actors. At this point in his literary career, Lyly had already achieved success with his prose romance Euphues and was a writer in residence at Blackfriars theatre. The play is set in a village on the Lincolnshire shore of the river Humber and in the neighboring woods. It features a host of characters including Greek deities, Nymphs, fairies and some shepherds.

A play titled Titirus and Galathea was entered into the Stationers' Register on 1 April 1585. Some scholars have speculated that this play, otherwise unknown, may have been an early version of Lyly's work — though the point is open to doubt, since what clearly was Lyly's play was entered into the Register on 4 October 1591, along with his Endymion and Midas. Gallathea was acted at the royal palace at Greenwich before Queen Elizabeth I by the Children of Paul's, most likely on 1 January 1588 (new style).Gallathea was first printed in 1592, 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 in 1591). Gallathea was next printed in Six Court Comedies (1632), the first collected edition of Lyly's works.

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