Remain on the lowest or mount to the highest--it is only a question of degree--you are a player all the same.
The Thespian army had no need of a recruiting-sergeant or a press-gang to reinforce its ranks.

There have always been amateurs lured by the mere spectacle of the foot-lights, as moths by a candle.

Crabbe's description of the strollers in his "Borough" was a favourite passage with Sir Walter Scott, and was often read to him in his last fatal illness: Of various men these marching troops are made, Pen-spurning clerks and lads contemning trade; Waiters and servants by confinement teased, And youths of wealth by dissipation eased; With feeling nymphs who, such resource at hand, Scorn to obey the rigour of command, &c.

&c.
And even to the skilled and experienced actors a wandering life offered potent attractions.

Apart from its liberty and adventure, its defiance of social convention and restraint, ambition had space to stir, and vanity could be abundantly indulged in the itinerant theatre.