Category:James Tunstall

James Tunstall (also Dunstall, Donstall, Donstone, and Dunstone) was a player in the 1580s and 1590s. Associated with John and Edward Alleyn, he played with Worcester's men in the early 1580s and the Admiral's men in 1590-91. As a member of that company, he was a witness to the legal battles over control of the Theater marked also by "James Burbage's splenetic outbursts against the widow Brayne at the Theater in Shoreditch" (Ingram, p. 25). He was also a player with the Admiral's men at Henslowe's Rose playhouse in 1594, where h appears in its initial recording of membership on 14 December 1594 Foakes, p. 8). Henslowe recorded the sale of a rather elaborate cloak to Tunstall in August 1595, as well as a loan and its repayment in mid-1596 (Foakes, pp. 37, 50, 51). He was bound to the company in late July 1597 for a two-year period (Foakes, p. 239). He died in 1599; his will, which leaves "whatsoeuer he was possessed of" to his wife, Jane, is dated 8 December (Honigmann and Brock, p. 64).

More on Tunstall may be found in William Ingram's The Business of Playing (Cornell, 1992).