John Lowin

John Lowin (baptized 9 December 1576 – buried – 24 August 1653) was an English actor.

Born in the St Giles-without-Cripplegate, London, Lowin was the son of a tanner. Like Robert Armin, he was apprenticed to a goldsmith. While he is not recorded as a free citizen of this company, he did perform as a goldsmith, Leofstane, in a 1611 city pageant written by Anthony Munday. This pageant was commissioned by the Goldsmiths' Company in honor of the election of one of their company as mayor; in the document employing him, Lowin is described as a "brother" of the company, suggesting some form of ongoing relationship with that community. He lived in Southwark, where parish registers record two marriages involving a man of his name (in 1607 and 1620); the latter definitely involved the actor.

Lowin was definitely associated with the theatrical world by 1602. His name frequently occurs in the account books of Philip Henslowe in 1602, when he was playing with Worcester's Men at Rose Theatre in Bankside; a note in Henslowe's book places him in a travelling company in the same year. By late 1603, he had joined the new King's Men, apparently as a hired man rather than a sharer, as his name is not mentioned in the original royal patent. He probably became a sharer in 1604, when the total number of sharers was likely increased to twelve.

That he became important to the company fairly quickly is suggested by his appearance as himself (alongside Richard Burbage and Henry Condell) in the induction to John Marston's The Malcontent. He is mentioned in the surviving cast lists of the company's productions of Ben Jonson's Sejanus (1603), Volpone (1605), The Alchemist (1610), and Catiline (1611), John Fletcher's Bonduca and Valentinian (both ca. 1613), and John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi (ca. 1614).

...
Wikipedia