This brief monograph explores why the Shakespeare authorship question matters in the appreciation of the plays. First, a new understanding of a complex play like Troilus and Cressida emerges as the focus shifts to the court of Elizabeth I where the author was writing a social, political, and personal satire addressed to the power elite. Second, an understanding of the original staging of the play shifts from the large, open-air, thrust theatre of the Globe to the more intimate theatrical space of the court. Troilus and Cressida has confused audiences for centuries. A new and clear understanding is possible when the layers of the author's satirical purposes are uncovered.