Elizabethan Theatre

…Starring William Shakespeare

 Introduction
 Throughout the middle ages  Queen Elizabeth I, ruler of
plays were performed by workers England (1533-1603) encouraged the
in towns and were religious formation of the theatre and acting
based, often retelling stories companies.
from the Bible.
 However, this ended after Henry
VIII’s break from Rome and
formation of the Church of
England in 1533.
 At the beginning of Elizabethan
times, there were

 strollers,
 minstrels,
 jugglers
 musicians.
The Evolution of the Elizabethan Theatre
INN YARDS…

 “Strolling players” – performed in different places,

earning money
 Inn-holders offered shelter to the Strolling
Players
 Temporary stages were erected by the actors here
 The capacity of inn-yards was 500 people
 First form of commercial Elizabethan theatre
 1576 – 1594 – peak of Elizabethan inn-yard theatres
Interior of an Elizabethan Inn-Yard
 Amphitheatres
 James Burbage built the first
Elizabethan theatre; “The
Globe”. Construction was
similar to the Roman
amphitheatres.

 Social status and wealth

determined the seating in
Elizabethan theatre.

 Like the inn-yard, the rich

would watch from the
windows & galleries, ordinary
people from the inn-yard.
 Elizabethan Playhouses
 Provided indoor venues for the production of
Elizabethan plays
 The Playhouses were more comfortable and
luxurious than other theatres
 Public performances would cost between 1 to 3
pennies, while private theatre cost was 2 to 26
pennies
 Suitable for winter and evening performances
because they were roofed
 Food and drink was served
The Elizabethan Playhouse
 Actors and Acting Companies

 Traveling companies performed wherever they could find audience

 Notorious reputation of vagabonds and thefts
 Two kinds of acting companies – adult companies and boy’s choirs
 No women were allowed onstage
 Four major acting companies: Lord Strange’s Men; Chamberlain’s
Men; Admiral’s Men; King’s Men
 Actor-Audience Relationship
 The ‘thrust stage’ of Elizabethan
theatre, meant that the audience
was right up in the action of the
play. This made for a much more
intimate experience of the delivery.
 Audience were involved in the play
– shouting suggestions,
encouragements or curses to the
actors
 Dialogue revealed to the audience
the time and place of the action,
the characters’ identities and even
their physical appearances
Stage Design and Sets
 In Elizabethan times there was
one permanent set.
 The back wall could serve as a
castle, house, palace, town, etc.
 An inner stage was located at the
back of the stage which could be
closed from view with a curtain
or used to represent inner
rooms, caves and hiding places.
 Above this inner stage was a
balcony or upper-stage.
 There was a muscians’ gallery
and high above the stage was a
turret from which a trumpeter
announced the start of the play.
 Costume
 Were very important to
actors and crucial to a
performance because there
was little scenery.

 More well-established actors

owned their own
costumes/acting groups
owned costumes that were
appropriate for many roles  Audience could distinguish
the more significant roles by
what the actors wore.
 Decorated with braid,
embroidery, pearls, jewels,
lace, and artificial flowers.
Costume and Make-up
 Strict laws about dressing
during the Elizabethan Age
– Sumptuary Law

 Make-up used by boy

actors was lead-based and
highly poisonous

 They used wigs, masks,

and different colored
suits/spent a lot of money
on clothing.
 Lighting and Properties

• Plays were always acted in

daylight; at this time there
was no artificial lighting.

• Props were simple.

• Chairs would be used to
indicate the scene as being
indoors, if a lantern was
carried, it was night or a
character wore riding boots,
they’d been traveling.
Common props were swords
and banners.
 The Playwrites
 Playwrights took inspiration from the
Roman theatre and writers like Seneca,
who wrote about crime, revenge, witches
and ghosts.
 Elizabethan writers introduced theatre
audiences to horror, the supernatural and
GORE…
 Famous playwrites included Christopher
Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Lyly and
Thomas Kyd.
 The most well known playwright of
Elizabethan times is William
Shakespeare.
 William Shakespeare ( 1563-1616)
 Born Stratford-upon-Avon
in 1564
 Well to do parents; father
was a glover
 Married Anne Hathaway in
1582
 Wrote 37 plays &
 Became Principal
 about 154 sonnets playwrite.
 Started out as an actor for  In 1599 Lord Ch. Co. built
Lord Chamberlain’s Men Globe Theater where
(London theater co.) most of Shakespeare’s
Play’s were performed
 Comedies, Tragedies and Histories
Tragedies
 Titus Andronicus Comedies
 Romeo and Juliet  Taming of the Shrew
 Julius Caesar
 Midsummer Night’s Dream
 Hamlet
 Merchant of Venice
 Othello
 Much Ado About Nothing
 King Lear
 As You Like It
 Macbeth
 Twelfth Night
 Antony and Cleopatra
 Measure for Measure
Histories  All’s Well that Ends Well
 Henry VI, Henry Iv & Henry
 The Tempest
VIII
 Richard III and Richard II
 Ingredients of Shakespearean Plays
 In Medias Res – always began
plays in the middle of things.
 Heightened Language - Blank
Verse and Poetry
 Puns
 References to Blood
 Foreshadowing
 Soliloquy – allowed audiences
to know what a character was
thinking like a voice over of a
soap opera
 Monologues – long addresses by
one character
 References to GHOSTS and
the supernatural
 Imagery – references to
night/light (to do with
lighting in the theatre)
 Asides
 The last person to speak is
always the person of highest
birth.
 Comic Relief
 Shakespeare Today
 Elizabethan theatre is still plays a part in our day to
day lives, mostly through the influence of
Shakespeare.
 References to his work are in films, novels, plays,
musicals, songs, poetry, artwork, satire…Even today
his characters and storylines continue to inspire…
 F.Y.I.
Shakespeare coined over 1600 words still used
today including countless, critical,
excellent, lonely, majestic, obscene and
its.

Said to have had a vocabulary of some 29,066

words. An average person’s today might use
just 2000 words used in everyday
conversation. With a vocabulary like that,
who needs a dictionary?

Names coined by Shakespeare:

- Imogen (Cymbaline)
- Jessica (The Merchant of Venice)
- Miranda (The Tempest)
- Olivia (Twelfth Night)
- Cordelia (King Lear)