Elizabethan Theatre: Fact Sheet

Suggested sources can be found in the Select Bibliography to the required text: Andrew Gurr, The Shakespearean Stage 1574 - 1642 (Cambridge, 1980)
Also consult Oscar G. Brockett, History of the Theatre, Chapter Seven, 'English Theatre from the Middle Ages to 1642' (Allyn & Bacon Inc.,)

Dates to remember:
Closing of the Corpus Christi Cycles by Protestant Tudor monarchy
1575 Last peformance of the Chester plays
1576 Plays at Wakefield banned.
1580 Attempt to stage the plays at York failed.

Before 1550s Tudor Grammar schools trained boy choristers in play-acting, both of Latin and native English texts. These grammar schools were to produce many of the playwrights, who became hack-work suppliers of the London Player Companies in the 1570s on.
There were no fixed acting companies at this time, but traveling players, mummers, etc.

1553 Tudor comedies, RALPH ROISTER DOISTER, GAMMER GURTON'S NEEDLE.

1562 GORBODUC This play sets the pattern of blank verse and establishes a political subject matter for Elizabethan tragedy.

1572 Act for Punishing Vagabonds caused traveling players to band into companies under the protection of certain nobles: Earls of Leicester, Essex, Oxford, etc. Actors in companies became shareholders and commissioned work from poets. Thousands of hack-work plays produced.
Players, not poets, gained the major profits.

Theaters thus were established as major commercial enterprises with actors and managers, such as Alleyn, who made large fortunes. (Alleyn became a player at the age of sixteen)

Companies consisted of about 12 adult shareholders and about six boy apprentices aged from 12-13 - 21 years. 'Boys' played female roles until 19 - 21 yrs old.

1574 Burbage's company was given Royal protection against censure and hostile actions from the City Fathers.
At least six companies were performing in London during the next few years: unique in Europe: London is the theater capital of the world.

1576 First playhouse built by Burbage.
Playhouses begin to appear in London (Gurr 113) Both 'public' 'outdoor' and open to the public (e.g. Burbage's) and also private (interior in halls in existing buildings). Public theaters were built outside the hostile City, in suburbs near bear-baiting rings. Private theaters were within City.
(Cost of admission to public theaters = 1 penny and up. For private theaters the cost was sixpence and up. Private theaters, then, were 'aristocratic' and tended to be anti-City, anti-merchant.
Cf. Beaumont & Fletcher's THE KNIGHT OF THE BURNING PESTLE (1607) written for a Boys company and attacking the City.

1577 First permanent playhouse in London. Due to opposition of City Fathers, Burbage built it outside city limits. (Gurr p. 31) First theatres mostly built in inn-yards.
For dates of subsequent theater buildings, their dimensions, and the nature of their construction, ornament and built-in scenery, see Gurr, (Chapter 4)

1585-87? Thomas Kyd: THE SPANISH TRAGEDY

1587 Christopher Marlowe: TAMBURLAINE produced with Edward Alleyn in title role. Performed by the Admiral's Men, who retained Marlowe's plays (popular with the public) Tragic actors now begin to overtake the reputations of comic actors. Clowns roles, therefore, were now diminished.

By 1592 Alleyn is the most famous player in London, mainly for his roles in Christopher Marlowe's plays.

1598 Licensing of theaters taken from magistrates and given to great nobles who now 'protected' the companies. (Gurr 28) Number of companies officially limited to two. (Gurr 73) But new companies and Boys' companies also set up. These latter were to rival adult companies.

1599 Globe Theatre built. Major theatres like the Globe, the Red Bull, the Rose and the Swan could hold up to 3,000 spectators. (Gurr 122)

1642 Playhouses closed by parliamentary order

Performances
The average repertory of companies required a new play each day of the week (except Sundays). Even a popular play, like TAMBURLAINE rarely was performed more than once a month. Each play, therefore, was rehearsed only on the day of performance. This required from the actors phenomenal memorization of lines.
(We have to accept that most Elizabethan theater events were quickly put together performances of poor play texts written by impoverished hacks).
Elaborate changes of scenery were impossible. Stock characters were required for rapid learning of roles (Gurr 103)

'Scenes' were created almost entirely by the text. ("The high winds/Do sorely ruffle and for many a mile/There's scarce a bush" "This castle hath a pleasant seat; the air/Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself/Unto our gentle senses.")

Jigs, dances and clown shows were standard in all performances until later times.

All acting took place on a platform stage, 'upfront'. This 3-dimensional presentation prevented pictorial realistic illusion. The sense that the play was only a play was strong. (Note Chorus to HENRY V). Later plays, such as 'The Knight of the Burning Pestle' play Pirandello-like games between staging and story. (Gurr, 163 - 166)
Lines were spoken rapidly. Performances began at two (previously at four) and ended between four and five o-clock. (Gurr 162)

There were no breaks for act divisions. Performances of plays were continuous without a break. This was to change in the later, private theater performances.

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