What was theatre like in the elizabethan era

The pieces of The Theatre were then used in the construction of the Globe Theatre. No remains of The Theatre survive. Its former site is marked by a plaque at Curtain Road, Shoreditch. It appears to have been a success, but scant information about it survives. The Red Lion was a receiving house for touring companies, whereas The Theatre accepted long term engagements, essentially in repertory.

The former was considered a continuation of the tradition of playing at inns, the later a radically new form of theatrical engagement. There is no evidence that the Red Lion continued beyond the summer of , although the law suit, from which we know much of the little we know of it, dragged on until The Swan was a theatre in Southwark, London, England, built between and , during the first half of William Shakespeare's career.

It was at the northeast corner of the Paris Garden estate that Francis Langley had purchased in May , east of the manor house, and yards south of the Paris Garden stairs at the river's edge. Langley had the theatre built almost certainy in When it was new, the Swan was the most visually impressive of the existing London theatres. Translated from the Latin, his description identifies the Swan as the "finest and biggest of the London theatres," with a capacity for spectators.

It was built of flint concrete, and its wooden supporting columns were so cleverly painted that "they would deceive the most acute observer into thinking that they were marble," giving the Swan a "Roman" appearance. De Witt also drew a sketch of the theatre. The original is lost, but a copy by Arendt van Buchell survives, and is the only sketch of an Elizabethan playhouse known to exist.

If the Lord Chamberlain's Men acted at the Swan in the summer of —which is possible, though far from certain—they would be the actors shown in the Swan sketch. When Henslowe built the new Hope Theatre in , he had his carpenter copy the Swan, rather than his own original theatre the Rose, which must have appeared dated and out of style in comparison.

In the Swan housed the acting company Pembroke's Men, who staged the infamous play The Isle of Dogs, by Thomas Nashe and Ben Jonson, the content of which gave offense for unknown reasons. Jonson was imprisoned, along with Gabriel Spenser an actor in the play, and others.

Langley, already in trouble with the Privy Council over matters unrelated to theater, may have exacerbated his danger by allowing his company to stage the play after a royal order that all playing stop and all theaters be demolished. This order may have been directed at Langley alone; the other companies, the Lord Chamberlain's Men and the Admiral's Men, had been authorized to return to the stage by October.

Because both court and city were interested in limiting the number of acting troupes in London, and because there was, consequently, a glut of large open-roof venues in the city, the Swan was only intermittently home to drama. The theater offered other popular entertainments, such as swashbuckling competitions and bear-baiting, and by it had been pulled down. It opened in , and continued staging plays until The Curtain was built some yards south of London's first playhouse, The Theatre, which had opened a year before, in It was called the "Curtain" because it was located near a plot of land called Curtain Close, not because it had the sort of front curtain associated with modern theatres.

Elizabethan theatres had small curtained enclosures at the back of their stages; but the large front-curtained Proscenium stage did not appear in England till after the Restoration. However, Jonson followed the strict classical form that was a hallmark of ancient Latin drama. His plays include Vulpine, or the Fox and The Alchemist. Other dramatists of the late Elizabethan period, which continued after her death, included John Webster, Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher.

By , three years before Elizabeth died, the robustness of Elizabethan drama began to fade. If you use any of the content on this page in your own work, please use the code below to cite this page as the source of the content. Link will appear as Hanson, Marilee. Read More English History Topics. We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits.

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The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other. There were no toilet facilities in the theatres and people relieved themselves outside.

Sewage was buried in pits or disposed of in the River Thames, this improper sanitation could have been responsible for outbreaks of the plague, which was the only time when then there was less of an audience at the theatres Elizabethan Era. Even though theatres moved out of London to avoid certain persecution they were still censored. Before every theatre performance an official would read a manuscript of the play, taking out any material they deemed offensive Greenblat This would become difficult for plays such as Henry IV or any other history play that was essentially about the government.

Theatres in Early Modern England were not like the theatres we have today, they were open-air which means they were much like our modern sports stadiums and the audience tended to act much like modern sports spectators.

The plays were lighted mainly by natural light, and could not take place at night or in bad weather Hodges As seen in the picture to the left of the Globe Theatre, the rectangular stage thrust out into a circular area called the pit. When audiences were purchasing tickets for a play they could choose to either sit here in the pit or to sit in the balconies Albright Elizabethan general public or people who were not nobility were referred to as groundlings.

They would pay one penny to stand in the Pit of the Globe Theater Howard The upper class spectators would pay to sit in the galleries often using cushions for comfort. Rich nobles could watch the play from a chair set on the side of the Globe stage itself, so an audience viewing a play may often have to ignore the fact that there is a noble man sitting right on the stage Elizabethan Era. Theatre performances were held in the afternoon, because there was no artificial lighting, this required the imagination of the audiences during scenes that were to take place at night Elizabethan Era.

Men and women attended plays, but often the prosperous women would wear a mask to disguise their identity Elizabethan Era.

Even though women did attend theatre, and even Queen Elizabeth herself loved the theatre women who attended theatre were often looked down upon. In fact if a woman was attending the theatre it was generally assumed she was a prostitute.

This is because the theatre was considered an unseemly place, and most people thought that women should be at home with their children Howard Since most theatre performances were often three hours long Henry IV would have been somewhere around two and a half , the behavior of the audience became very rowdy, the audiences did not keep quiet, or arrive on time, or remain for the whole performance they would simply get up and leave whenever they felt like it.

They joined in on the action occurring on stage, interrupted the actors, and even sometimes got on the stage.

They also talked during dull moments, and threw rotting vegetables, especially tomatoes at the actors Elizabethan Era. A performance of Henry IV was probably very distracting in a Shakespearian theatre. Shakespeare must have thought so too, moving his play company out of open-air theatres in to perform at Black-friars which were an indoor theatre that was supposed to produce a more refined audience Elizabethan Era. The upper class spectators probably cheered for upper class characters in plays such as Westmorland or Prince Hal.

And of course lower class spectators would cheer for lower class characters, and if these two social classes were ever dueling in a play, it was practical pandemonium in the theatre Audiences. The audiences would also cheer for the good guys, and boo the bad ones.