Elizabethan Drama Theatre
Elizabethan Theatre & Drama Drama and theatrical presentation in Elizabethan England is not acknowledged and remembered today because of individual plays, but for the physical plant itself, its facilities, social attendance, general themes, and writers of the time. Plays were important and vital to the time period, but the playhouse and factors surrounding it, really characterize the Elizabethan period. Writers and actors alike all play an important part in the theatre, and very important is the structure of the playhouses. By far the most famous, or better-said, well known theatre of Elizabethan theatre has to be the Globe. ... In short the Globe playhouse witness and helped create the essence of the Elizabethan theatre. The shapes and dimensions of Elizabethan theatres were strongly influenced by the shape, size and structure of the playhouse as a whole. ... The theatre had heavy okay framework, which was very valuable. The wood was the reason for the standing twenty-two-year-old theatre. ... Wood is not easily curved; making the job of Elizabethan carpenters a hard task to say the least. ... If the person so wished, he could remain in that section of the theatre without paying any more money. ... These spectators of course being the people of either money or great influence in the theatre. One way to view the accommodations is to basically list them and compare them as a whole to the theatre. ... The is no contemporary estimate for the exact capacity of a Elizabethan theatre, but it is noted that the Swan playhouse supposedly was able to accommodate 3,000 people. Compared to the whole theatre, the two-penny rooms are the biggest ones. ... Dimensions of the playhouses in Elizabethan theatre were all different of course, but on an average the rear platform was 41 feet wide in order to equal the width of the tiring house, and the front platform was about 24 feet. ... In Elizabethan playhouses there were many traps and other devices that operated from below the stage. ... One aspect of the theatre, which is sometimes overlooked, but indeed important, is the stage curtain. The playhouse curtains in Elizabethan theatre specifically were suspended from a fixed rod upon which the sections were caused to move laterally. ... Flanking the lower-stage curtains and placed in the oblique walls of the theatre were the outer-stage doors, which really seemed abundant and not necessary. ... The superstructure is basically self-explanatory, being that it was basically like a room on top of the theatre. The physical plant is a great part of what people call Elizabethan theatre, but there is much more.