Early iterations of the company were active in the 1560s and 1570s; Henry Stanley, 4th Earl of Derby, kept players both before and after his accession to the title in 1572.
In 1588 the company went through a re-organization: Symons and the other tumblers left for a competing troupe, Queen Elizabeth's Men.
Between February and June 1592 they were at Henslowe's Rose Theatre, where they acted a repertory of 23 plays that included one or more of Shakespeare's Henry VI trilogy.
[4] They gave three more Court performances in the winter of 1592–3; but on 28 January 1593 bubonic plague broke out again in London, an outbreak so severe that it would disrupt the entire framework of professional theatre in the capital.
A combination of Strange's and Admiral's actors, led by Edward Alleyn, toured the countryside in 1593–4, visiting Kent, Southampton, Bath, Bristol, Shrewsbury, and perhaps to York and Chester before turning south again to Leicester and Coventry.