Shakespeare's principal partner was Richard Burbage. Burbage's father, James, had built the original theater in London, so the family was very important in the theater tradition. It was Burbage who played all the dramatic leads, from Romeo to Macbeth. He became immensely popular as an actor, and his success in performing must have added to Shakespeare's growing reputation as the premiere playwright, especially after Marlowe's death. Because Shakespeare worked in such close proximity with his company, writing roles for specific men while he continued to act sometimes himself, it is possible that his fellow actors collaborated in the creative process, suggesting changes in the language and helping to clarify relationships between the characters. There are a few tantalizing suggestions in the different texts of the same play, like Hamlet, that variations may have come from the other actors. It is clear that the texts of the plays were living documents, which continued to change over time.

Another partner in the Lord Chamberlain's Men was Will Kemp, who played the principal comic actor. Kemp was famous for his mugging and impromptu physical comedy. Apparently when he did something that got a laugh he would repeat and embellish on the comic bit, thereby interrupting the flow of the play. This may well have irritated the playwright. After Kemp had left the company Shakespeare has Hamlet instruct a group of actors, "Let those that play your clowns speak no more than is set down for them," so they do not intrude on "some necessary question of the play." Kemp, shown here, quit the partnership before 1600 and subsequently gained fame for dancing a jig all the way from London to Norwich.

It is apparent that Shakespeare was successful as a playwright because as an actor he wrote from within the process. He knew how to shape language to make the actors effective in their roles, and he knew what tricks they could play to upstage each other. One of the problems those who deny Shakespeare's authorship face is that no one they can suggest as the alternative had the intimate knowledge of the theater that Shakespeare did.