Miranda Reeves

THR 161.501
Elizabethan Theatre

Elizabethan Theatre was a period of Theatre that was predominant through and

a little after the reign of Queen Elizabeth. It was popularized through plays by William

Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, and more who pushed the boundaries of theatre in

many different ways. Predominantly, Shakespeare and Marlowe were known for being

the best, with some believing Marlowe to be Shakespeare’s superior. Notably, however,

Shakespeare has performed in the well known Globe theater, which also makes him a

much more known playwright.

Elizabethan Theatre has a certain structure, much different than modern pieces

may have. Oftentimes, plays would interact with the audience as the audience talked to

them, and other modern conventional rules of theatre were broken with the usage of

young men, also known as apprentices, to play the females in the plays. In the era,

there were also laws against wearing clothing above your ranking, which led to actors

having to be licensed to wear clothing above their stature. Stages were always

performed on during the afternoon, due to having no artificial lighting, but they were not

without their effects. Many different things were a part of the process, including smoke

rising, and even real cannons firing (which is partially what led to the loss of the Globe.)

Many of these plays were written by playwrights such as Christopher Marlowe, a

man before his time who pushed the era into what it was known for. His plays used

different formatting with little rhyme, and often featured men who overreached their

social stature, drawing attention to such issues in real life. Unfortunately, Marlowe

passed early in a tavern fight, which led to the uprising of Shakespeare as the

dominant, and most sought after playwright. Shakespeare took over and continued to

push boundaries with his bawdy and often uncensored words. Surpassing all during his
Miranda Reeves
THR 161.501
Elizabethan Theatre
time, and after, the man is known today as one of the, if not the most, influential

playwrights in history and continues to inspire today.

Most of his plays were stemmed from his time in the Lord Chamberlain’s

Company, where he wrote and was in plays such as Hamlet and Macbeth. Owning a

part of the share, Shakespeare was roughly in with 1/7-1/14th of ownership, and worked

with the others to keep the Globe in running shape. Having built it with wood from the

Theatre, it was thought to be three stories tall, open-air, with a rectangular “apron” stage

in the middle. Unfortunately, the Globe was set on fire during a performance of Henry

VIII due to a cannon, but there were no known casualties. After this mishap, the stage

was closed down by the Puritans and destroyed. It was recreated in 1990 to historically

resemble the Globe with the evidence we have from the bygone era.

The Elizabethan Era was impactful and important to theatre as we know it, and

without such strong playwrights, theatre wouldn’t be the same as it is today. With it’s

passing we lost important people and exciting plays, but it brought about the information

and plays that we have today to truly understand and master the stage. With the Globe,

Marlowe, and Shakespeare, we have further understood how to dominate the stage in a

way the old masters did, and will continue to put their instruction to good use.

Works Cited:

http://www.shakespeare-online.com/theatre/globe.html
Miranda Reeves
THR 161.501
Elizabethan Theatre
https://www.britainexpress.com/History/elizabethan-theatre.htm

http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/e/elizabethan-theatre/

The Globe Restored: A Study Of Elizabethan Theatre