Zurciendo teatro, confeccionando un oficio: el caso de Juan Meléndez, sastre y autor de comedias

This article is a study of the professional trajectory of Juan Meléndez, theater director active in the city of Lima during the decade of the 1590s. New documents discovered in the city's notarial records reveal that, in addition to his work in theater, Juan Meléndez was a tailor. The proposed study takes into account, on the one hand, the importance of the role that urban crafts played in the professionalization of theater in all the Hispanic territories; and, on the other hand, the fact that there was a strong tradition of tailors participating in cities' public festivities and establishing connections with the world of theater. With this in mind, I study the case of Juan Meléndez and propose that we are dealing with an example of a semi-professional in theater who, in the moment when important businessmen-directors began to arrive to Lima at the turn of the seventeenth century, combined the craft of the tailor with the one of the head-comedian to form a very interesting company.