LIFE IN THE THEATER~Shakespeare

Life in the Theater•Little scenery•Acting company known as the Lord Chamberlain’s Men and later as the King’s Men. •They put on plays in many places.•Bubonic plague in the capital forced the closing of theaters• Usually staged their plays in churches (until around 1600) or in guildhalls•“The original theater in which the Lord Chamberlain’s Men staged their plays was known simply as The Theatre”. It was built in a city of London called Shoreditch.

The London Playhouses

• Outdoor or public playhouses that could accommodate large numbers of playgoers• Indoor or private theaters for much smaller audiences. •Officials repeatedly petitioned the royal council to abolish drama.

The London Playhouses (continued)

•Richard Burbage- most famous actor in Shakespeare's company•James Burbage built the Theatre. (He was Richard’s father)•The curtain, the Fortune, the Rose, the Swan, the Globe, and the Hope were other popular theaters.

Building the Globe•Extremely harsh weather during the building of the Globe.•Started building the Globe in 1599 and started putting plays on I n the Globe in 1599.•After the first Globe burned down in 1613 during the staging of Shakespeare's Henry VIII , Shakespeare's company immediately rebuilt on the same location.•The second Globe remained until 1692

Inside the Theaters•The structure of the theater, they were open-air playhouses and some were polygon and circled in shape. But known to hold a vast amount of audience.

• Groundlings and Nutshells•The groundlings, which hamlet called them, were the spectators in the yard. The floor were they stood was covered with nutshells

• The Early Stage•The stage itself was covered by a roof called the “Heavens” which was painted to depict the sun, moon, stars, and planets.

Inside the Theaters(continued)

•A drawing by Johannes de Witt led scholars to believe that Shakespeare's stage that plays were performed on must have measured approximately 43 feet in width and 27 feet in depth.•A private theater in Blackfriars•Shakespeare's plays were staged not only at the Globe but also at an indoor or private playhouse in Blackfriars.•In the private theater that Burbage constructed, the stage, lit by candles, was built across the narrow end of the hall, with boxes flanking it. The rest of the hall offered seating room only.

Business Arangements•Philip Henslowe owned the Rose and leased it to companies of actors. Henslowe would act as manager of these companies•Shakespeare’s company managed itself, with principle actors, one of them being Shakespeare.•Shakespeare was involved in the theatrical industry.•Although Shakespeare and his fellows prospered, their status under the law was conditional upon the protection of powerful patrons, those who did not have patrons or masters

Staging and Performance•Stages were not separated from the audience by dropping the curtains between acts and scenes•the customary way Shakespeare ended a scene was to make all of his actors excite onstage and have new actors come in to begin the next scene•one of the greatest differences between dramatic performances in Shakespeare’s time and ours was that in his plays the roles of women were played by men• there was no women actors in his plays only in the audience

•usually Shakespeare’s stage is referred to as a “ bare stage”•one of Shakespeare’s most famous plays that is still being read today is Romeo and Juliet•Shakespeare mostly wrote about tragedies.

Work Cited"Shakespeare's Theater." -Folger Shakespeare Library. Web. 11 Apr. 2011.