The Elizabethan Theatre in Shakespeare's Time

In the middle 1500’s, there were no theatres in England. Entertainment was provided by wandering minstrels who moved from castle to castle, town to town.

Traveling actors played before audiences in courtyards of taverns called inn-yards. Some of the largest inn-yards could hold 500 people.

The actors / minstrels were not held in the highest esteem. People thought of most of them were vagabonds and thieves. They had to have a license to move about the country and were treated with suspicion especially during Bubonic Plague outbreaks.

Finally regulations were written and licenses granted to English nobles who began to maintain troupes of players.

In 1576 James Burbage (father of famous Elizabethan actor, Richard Burbage) built the first theatre, appropriately called The Theatre, in London. The Theatre was a smaller version of the Roman Coliseum but with a capacity of 3000 people. In 1577, work began on another theatre, The Curtain, followed by the Rose in 1587.

The Bubonic Plague and rowdy theatre-going crowds caused problems in the City of London. Many Londoners were strict Puritans and abhorred the theatres and the types of the people they attracted. Finally, in 1596 London authorities banned the public presentation of plays and all theaters within the City limits of London. So, actors and theatre owners picked up and crossed the Thames where the south bank was outside the London city limits.

Between 1592 and 1594, as theatres became more popular, William Shakespeare wrote one of his earliest plays Comedy of Errors, based on two comedies by Roman playwright, Plautus.

In 1599 the Globe Theatre was built on Bankside, in the south of London. William Shakespeare was a co-owner and chief playwright. The Globe Theater - and Shakespeare - proved to be huge successes.

Four years later another outbreak of the Bubonic Plague killed 33,000 people In London and all theatres are closed until the deadly outbreak subsided.

On June 29, 1613 a cannon fired in one of the plays started a huge fire that consumed the Globe Theatre. The Globe was rebuilt in 1614 on its original foundations but this time the roof was tiled, not thatched. Three years later William Shakespeare was dead.

This summer, June 3-20, the Charlotte Shakespeare Festival, www.charlotteshakespeare.com, presents Comedy of Errors outdoors on The Green in Uptown Charlotte. Admission is free. Bring a blanket, food and drink and come early to enjoy Festivities, special pre-show entertainment.

Next post: Comedy of Errors: The Plot