Short answers, pulled from the story.
The Parnassus plays emerged between 1598 and 1602 as three satiric comedies performed by students at St John's College in Cambridge. The final piece was likely written no later than 1601, which aligns with Queen Elizabeth I dying in March 1603 to date the trilogy's completion.
No one knows who wrote the Parnassus plays yet scholars have speculated that Ingenioso may represent Thomas Nashe himself though this was not originally intended. The author clearly knew Nashe's works well since all three parts contain numerous reminiscences of them and Francis Bacon noted universities produced more educated men than there were jobs available.
Philomusus and Studioso begin their journey on Mount Parnassus representing the traditional trivium of grammar logic and rhetoric while encountering figures like Madido a drunkard and Stupido a puritan. Amoretto tempts them to linger in Poetry and dally with wenches instead of continuing onward while Ingenioso warns them that poverty awaits at Mount Parnassus before they finally reach its foothills.
The plays critique the plight of educated graduates facing severe employment shortages in late sixteenth-century England where Thomas Nashe and Christopher Marlowe turned to theater because few other options existed. These scholars often found themselves unable to take up humble trades traditionally held by their fathers and struggled to find meaningful work despite their education as illustrated when Luxurio joins them in London but soon abandons poetry entirely to become a beggar.
The third play entered the Stationers Register in 1605 by Owen Gwyn before being published twice in 1606 four years after its original performance. For many years the first two plays remained considered lost until W.D. Macray discovered them in 1886 while researching manuscripts collected by Thomas Hearne at Oxford's Bodleian Library.