Download Shakespeare and the Elizabethan Theatre

Theatre in the Elizabethan Age
During the Elizabethan age, England was mostly peaceful and well-off. In the early days, Elizabethan
theatre space was located in courtyards and the larger homes of noble patrons.
The Globe Theatre
Could accommodate up to 3000 people per performance.
There were no restroom facilities, and plays were performed without intermissions.
The public who came to the theatres paid accordingly for where they were during the play. In
the yard or pit, “groundlings” paid a penny. The groundlings were very vocal and demonstrative
during the plays, hissing and booing the villains and cheering for the hero. If they thought the
play was bad, they would let their feelings known by throwing garbage at the stage and the
actors; if they thought it was good, they would cheer loudly.
Seats in the gallery were higher priced, perhaps two pennies for the first level, three pennies for
the second and so on. To sit in the gallery was more expensive than in the pit, so the audience
who chose to watch from here was more wealthy, consisting of shop-keepers or merchants.
There were middle and upper galleries, and the higher in these you sat, the larger the fee to sit
there.
The most expensive seats were situated above the stage and the balcony. This area, the Lord’s
Room, was used by the very wealthy to watch the plays from above. The seats had an added
benefit of allowing the rich to be seen by everyone else.
Theatres of this era had what is known as a thrust stage, described this way because it projected
into the yard, and the audience was able to surround it on three sides.
On the stage, there was a trap door for performers to enter from the "cellarage"
beneath the stage, which was known as “hell.”
Large columns on either side of the stage supported a roof over the rear portion of the stage.
The ceiling under this roof was called the "heavens," and was painted with clouds and the sky. A
trap door in the heavens enabled performers to descend using some form of rope and harness.
There was very little scenery available, so dialogue was used to explain where the scene was
taking place.
Costume was very important in Elizabethan theatre; costumes would tell the audience the
character’s status, family ties or profession.
The Elizabethan theatre used a variety of sound effects, such as thunder, running horses, falling
rain, and cannon blasts.
Music played an important role in the setting the mood of the plays. Musicians performed from
one of the balconies above the stage.
Plays were performed in the afternoons, lit only by daylight.
Performances were announced by hoisting a flag above the theatre—white for comedy, black
for tragedy, and red for history. Since so many people could not read, a simple system to
advertise performances was necessary, especially since the plays were different almost every
day.