Introduction

Introduction

•The Elizabethan Age come some of the most highly-respected plays in Western drama

•These play include those from William Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, and Christopher Marlowe

•These plays were patterned on numerous previous sources including the Greek tragedy, Seneca's plays, Attic drama, English miracle plays, morality plays, and interludes

•Elizabethan tragedy dealt with heroic themes, usually centering on a great personality who is destroyed by his own passion and ambition.

•The comedies often satirized the fops and gallants of society.

•The period began at the commencement of Queen Elizabeth I's reign in 1558

•The ending date is an uncertainty

•Some consider the age to have ended at the queen's death in 1603

•While others place the end of Elizabethan Drama at the closing of the theatres in 1642.

Theatre

Theatre

•There were three different types of venues for Elizabethan plays:

•Inn-yards,

•Open air Amphitheatres

•Playhouses.

•The Inn-yards were the original venues of plays and many were converted into Playhouses.

•The Amphitheatres were generally used during the Summer months and then the Acting Troupes moved to the indoor playhouses during the Winter Season.

Inn-yards

•The early days of Elizabethan commercial theatre.

•Performances held in private London Inns.

•Inexpensive.

•Held indoors or the yard.

•Audience capacity up to 500

Open Air Amphitheaters

•Public outdoor structure

•Like the Coliseum or a small football stadium

•Capacity of between 1500 and 3000 people

Indoor Playhouses

•A small, private indoor hall.

•Open to anyone who would pay but more expensive with more select audiences.

•Audience capacity up to 500