John Honyman

Who was John Honyman?

John Honyman, also Honeyman, Honiman, Honnyman, or other variants, was an English actor of the Caroline era. He was a member of the King's Men, the most prominent playing company of its era, best known as the company of William Shakespeare and Richard Burbage.

Honyman belonged to the generation that followed Shakespeare and Burbage. He was christened on 7 February 1613, in the parish of St. Botolph's, Bishopsgate. An apprentice of John Shank, he started his career as a boy player filling female roles; in his teens he was playing leading female parts, Domitilla in The Roman Actor and Sophia in The Picture, both plays by Philip Massinger, and Clarinda in Lodowick Carlell's The Deserving Favourite.

Some boy actors of Honyman's era made successful transitions from filling lead female roles as boys to lead male roles as young men; Stephen Hammerton and Richard Sharpe are two examples of this successful transition. John Honyman illustrates the opposite phenomenon, in that he graduated to only rather minor roles as a young adult. He played the servingman Sly in John Clavell's The Soddered Citizen, and the First Merchant in Massinger's Believe as You List.