English Renaissance theatre facts for kids

A 1596 sketch of a rehearsal in progress on the thrust stage of The Swan, a typical circular Elizabethan open-roof playhouse

English Renaissance theatre is the name for plays and performances in England between 1558 and 1642. You might also hear it called Elizabethan theatre. This was the time when famous writers like William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, and Ben Jonson created their amazing plays.

What Was This Theatre Period Like?

This exciting time for theatre began around 1562 and lasted until 1642. That's when the English Parliament stopped plays from being performed.

The term "Elizabethan" usually refers to the time when Queen Elizabeth I was queen (1558–1603). But the "English Renaissance theatre" period also includes:

• Elizabethan theatre (1562 to 1603)
• Jacobean theatre (1603 to 1625), when King James I ruled
• Caroline theatre (1625 to 1642), when King Charles I ruled

At first, everyone, from the Queen to regular people, watched the same plays. But later, special private theatres opened. These theatres mostly showed plays for richer audiences. By the end of this period, not many new plays were being written for the public theatres. They mostly showed older, popular plays.

Where Did Plays Happen?

School and University Plays

Many plays were performed in schools and universities.

• Grammar Schools: Students learned about grammar, logic, and public speaking. They practiced acting skills like using gestures and their voice. Students would perform plays in both Latin and English, especially on holidays.
• Choir Schools: Schools like St. George’s Chapel and St. Paul’s had boy choirs. These boys would perform plays and shows for the Queen. Later, these boy acting groups also performed for the public. Famous playwrights like John Lyly and Ben Jonson wrote plays just for these boy companies.
• Universities: Students at places like Oxford and Cambridge also put on plays. At first, they mostly read out parts in Latin. But as old Greek and Latin plays were rediscovered, students started performing them. Even Queen Elizabeth I watched plays when she visited these universities.

Nathan Field, who started acting as a boy player

Inns of Court Plays

Gorboduc, a famous play from the Inns of Court

After university, many students, especially those studying law, lived and worked at places called the Inns of Court. These were like communities for lawyers and university graduates. Many famous writers and playwrights lived here, including John Donne and Sir Francis Bacon.

The Inns of Court also put on plays. Some famous plays performed here include Gorboduc and The Misfortunes of Arthur. Even Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors and Twelfth Night were performed at the Inns of Court, even though he wrote them for public theatres.

Masques

A masque was a special kind of entertainment. It combined music, dance, singing, and acting. People wore fancy costumes, and there were often amazing stage effects. Masques were usually performed for royalty and nobles.

Building Theatres

The very first permanent theatre in England was the Red Lion, which opened in 1567. But it didn't last long. The first truly successful theatres, like The Theatre, opened in 1576.

These large public theatres were very important for English Renaissance drama to become popular. The Mayor of London and the city government banned plays in 1572 because of the plague. They then kicked all actors out of the city in 1575. This made people build permanent theatres just outside London's control.

Some of the most famous theatres built during this time were:

• The Theatre (1576)
• The Curtain (1577)
• The Rose (1587)
• The Swan (1595)
• The Globe (1599)
• The Fortune (1600)
• The Red Bull (1604)

Theatre Design

Panorama of the interior of the Globe Theatre, London

When archaeologists dug up the foundations of the Rose and the Globe theatres, they found that all London theatres had similar designs. Public theatres were usually three stories high and built around an open space in the middle. They were often round or many-sided, like a polygon.

The stage was a platform that stuck out into the open space. The audience surrounded it on three sides. The back of the stage was for actors to enter and exit, and for musicians. The upper level behind the stage could be used as a balcony, like in Romeo and Juliet. It could also be a place for an actor to speak to a crowd, as in Julius Caesar.

The "pit" was the area closest to the stage. This is where the poorest audience members stood to watch the show. Around the 1600s, a new area called a 'gullet' was added. This was a hidden path for actors to go to the sides of the stage to change costumes quickly.

Theatres were usually made of wood and plaster. They were built to hold many people.

A different kind of theatre was the Blackfriars Theatre, which started being used regularly in 1599. The Blackfriars was smaller and had a roof, unlike the open-air public theatres. It was more like modern theatres. Other small, enclosed theatres followed, like the Whitefriars (1608) and the Cockpit (1617).

By 1629, London had six theatres:

• Three large open-air public theatres: the Globe, the Fortune, and the Red Bull.
• Three smaller, enclosed private theatres: the Blackfriars, the Cockpit, and the Salisbury Court.

This meant audiences in the 1630s had many plays to choose from. Older plays by Marlowe and Shakespeare were still performed often in public theatres. Newer plays were mostly shown in the private theatres.

Audiences

Around 1580, London's theatres could hold about 5,000 people on a busy summer day. After 1610, with new theatres, this number grew to over 10,000!

Ticket prices changed. The cost depended on where you wanted to sit or what you could afford. If you wanted a better view or more privacy, you paid more. Because of rising prices, tickets sometimes went from one penny to sixpence or even more.

Most commercial theatres were just outside the City of London. This was because city leaders were often suspicious of acting groups. But touring companies performed plays all over England. English acting groups even traveled to other countries like Germany and Denmark.

Wealthy audience members paid for seats in the galleries. They often used cushions for comfort. At the Globe Theatre, nobles could even sit right on the side of the stage!

Performances

Acting companies used a "repertory system." This means they rarely performed the same play two days in a row. Unlike today, where a show might run for months, these groups performed many different plays.

For example, in 1592, Lord Strange's Men performed 23 different plays in just a few months. They never played the same play twice in a row. This meant actors, especially the main ones like Richard Burbage or Edward Alleyn, had to learn many different roles very quickly!

One unique thing about these companies was that only males were allowed to act. Girls' and women's parts were played by teenage boy players dressed in women's costumes. Some companies were made up entirely of boy actors.

In public theatres like the Globe, performances happened in the afternoon using natural sunlight. If it got dark during a play, candles were lit. In enclosed private theatres like the Blackfriars, artificial lighting was used all the time.

Plays had very little scenery. The actors would describe the setting, or costumes would give clues about where the scene was taking place.

Actors in Elizabethan times were always learning new plays as they traveled. Sometimes, a "bookkeeper" would act as a narrator, introducing actors and their roles. Plays often had more characters than actors. So, actors would "double roles," meaning one actor played several different characters in the same play. This helped companies save money on salaries and perform with fewer actors.

There were two main acting styles:

• Formal acting: This was more traditional and objective. The actor represented the role.
• Natural acting: This tried to create an illusion for the audience. The actor stayed in character and pretended to be in the fictional world. The actor impersonated the role.

Both styles, along with actors playing multiple roles, made Elizabethan plays very popular.

Costumes

Costumes of the Elizabethan era; sketch by William Hickman Smith Aubrey, c. 1867

Costumes were very important in Elizabethan theatre. They made up for the lack of scenery and props on stage. Costumes were bright and colorful to catch the audience's eye.

Colors and fabrics showed a character's social status. For example, purple was a color for royalty. So, when a character first appeared, the audience knew their importance just by their clothes.

Theatre companies kept a stock of costumes. They usually reused old costumes instead of making new ones because costumes were expensive. Actors often wore modern clothing, even if the play was set in a different time period. The most expensive costumes were given to characters of high social status. The quality of the fabrics also showed how wealthy the acting company was. Fabrics like velvet, satin, silk, and lace were common. For less important characters, actors might even use their own clothes.

There were laws in the Tudor and Elizabethan eras about what different social classes could wear. Rich people showed off their wealth with fancy clothes. But actors were an exception! They were allowed to dress above their normal social standing *while they were performing*. This was because their costumes were part of their "working tools."

Playwrights

London's growing population and wealth meant there was a huge demand for plays. About 3,000 plays were written during this time, but most have been lost. We still have at least 543 of them!

The people who wrote these plays often came from humble beginnings. Some went to Oxford or Cambridge universities, but many did not. While William Shakespeare and Ben Jonson were also actors, most playwrights after 1600 didn't act. Their lives could be dangerous; for example, Christopher Marlowe was killed in a fight.

Playwrights were usually paid in stages as they wrote. If a play was accepted, they also got the money from one day's performance. However, they didn't own the plays they wrote. Once a play was sold to a company, the company owned it. The playwright had no say in who acted in it, how it was performed, or if it was changed or published.

Being a playwright was tough and didn't pay much. Records show that around 1600, a playwright might get only £6 or £7 for a play. A single writer could usually only produce two plays a year. Shakespeare was successful because he was also an actor and owned a share in his acting company and the theatres they used.

Many plays were written by teams of two, three, or even five writers. This helped them write plays faster. For example, Thomas Dekker worked on 16 plays in one year with others! A team of writers could sometimes produce a play in just two weeks.

Timeline of English Renaissance Playwrights

Short yellow lines indicate 27 years—the average age these authors began their playwrighting careers

Play Genres

Many different types of plays were popular during this period:

• History Plays: These plays showed events from English or European history. Shakespeare's plays about kings, like Richard III and Henry V, are examples. Christopher Marlowe's Edward II also fits this type.
• Tragedies: These were very popular. Marlowe's tragedies, like Dr. Faustus, were very successful. Audiences especially loved "revenge dramas," such as Thomas Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy. Shakespeare's greatest tragedies—Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth—were written then.
• Comedies: These plays were also common. A new type called "city comedy" became popular. These plays made fun of life in London, similar to old Roman comedies. Examples include Thomas Dekker's The Shoemaker's Holiday.
• Other Genres: Older types of plays like pastorals (plays about shepherds and country life) and morality plays (plays that taught lessons) still had some influence. After 1610, a new mixed type called "tragicomedy" became popular. Masques also continued to be performed for the kings. Plays based on Bible stories, like Peele's David and Bethsabe, were also common.

Printed Plays

Only a small number of plays from this time were ever printed. For example, out of Thomas Heywood's 220 plays, only about 20 were published. In total, a little over 600 plays were published during this period. Most were printed as single books.

For a long time, people thought that printed plays were very popular and made a lot of money for the printers. But more recently, some experts think that publishing plays was actually a risky business.

A few plays from this era have survived not as printed books, but as handwritten manuscripts.

The End of English Renaissance Theatre

The rising Puritan movement was against theatre. They believed that "entertainment" was sinful. Playwrights and actors were often supported by the King and nobles. Most of them supported the Royalist side in the First English Civil War.

The Puritans gained control of London early in the war. On September 2, 1642, the Parliament, influenced by the Puritans, banned plays in London theatres. They didn't order the theatres to be destroyed, but they did stop performances.

The ban was meant to be temporary, saying plays should stop "while these sad causes and set Times of Humiliation do continue." But it didn't say when they could start again.

Even after 1642, during the English Civil War and the time when England was a Commonwealth, some theatre continued. Short, funny plays called drolls were allowed. The theatre buildings themselves were not closed down, but used for other things.

Plays remained banned for most of the next 18 years. They were allowed again after the King returned to power in 1660. Theatres started performing many of the old plays, often with changes. New types of plays, like Restoration comedy, soon developed, giving English theatre in the late 1600s its own special style.

List of Playwrights

Actors

Playhouses

Playing Companies

Timeline of English Renaissance Playing Companies

English Renaissance playing company timeline

This timeline charts the existence of major English playing companies from 1572 ("Acte for the punishment of Vacabondes", which legally restricted acting to players with a patron of sufficient degree) to 1642 (the closing of the theatres by Parliament). A variety of strolling players, and even early London-based troupes existed before 1572. The situations were often fluid, and much of this history is obscure; this timeline necessarily implies more precision than exists in some cases. The labels down the left indicate the most common names for the companies. The bar segments indicate the specific patron. In the case of children's companies (a distinct legal situation) some founders are noted.

Other Important People

• Susan Baskervile, investor and litigant
• William Beeston, manager
• George Buc, Master of the Revels 1609–1622
• Cuthbert Burbage, entrepreneur
• James Burbage, entrepreneur
• Ralph Crane, scribe
• Philip Henslowe, entrepreneur
• Henry Herbert, Master of the Revels 1623–1673
• Edward Knight, prompter
• Francis Langley, entrepreneur
• John Rhodes, manager
• Edmund Tilney, Master of the Revels 1579–1609

See also

In Spanish: Teatro isabelino para niños

• Accession Day tilt
• History of theatre
• The Subject of Tragedy by Catherine Belsey