Thomas J. King Jr.

Dr. King's historical work also researched original prompt copies of Elizabethan Era and Jacobean Era plays contemporary to Shakespeare, along with their marginalia, in order to identify stage directions and infer physical staging of Shakespeare's plays at the Globe and other London venues, as well as at provincial halls and inns where Elizabethan troupes performed on tour.

In his extensive studies, Prof. King created databases of every Shakespeare play and other extant Elizabethan contemporary playhouse documents, by scene and character, to determine number of lines, and therefore the roles that could be doubled with sufficient time between for costume change, thus enabling him to determine the size of a working Elizabethan theater company.

Based, in part, on his extensive experience in professional stage production, his academic studies combined textual analysis with analysis of original correspondence, illustrations, playhouse documents and financial records to identify principal actors and journeymen involved in performance of Shakespeare's plays and the plays of other Renaissance dramatists in England.

He also served as consultant to Sam Wanamaker on the construction of the modern Shakespeare's Globe Theatre located near the original site in the London Borough of Southwark, on the south bank of the Thames.

Graduated from Princeton University, Class of 1946 in the year 1948, delayed due to war service 1943-1945 as combat air navigator in the Pacific (U.S. 20th Air Force: 6th Bomb Group [1]) Nineteen-year-old 2nd Lt. King was stationed on Tinian in the Marianas, navigating B-19s and B-29s across the Pacific on missions over Japan.

[2] Summer Stock seasons included stage-managing at Westport Country Playhouse, and directing Gloria Swanson in On the Twentieth Century at Hollywood-by-the-Sea, FL.