Renaissance Times: What was it like to attend the theater during Shakespeare's time?

Question

Please leave your sources to this question

Answer 1

This is discussed in a number of books on Shakepeare's England and London.
There were public and private theaters. Private theaters were inside buildings and going to them (for upper class people) was like visiting a friend for dinner or a party or a ball.
The public theaters were generally open roofed. People who were willing pay extra would sit on benches in single or double row seat boxes in the walls around the pit. These people would probably arrive by horse, carriage, or public vehicles, but might walk. All of the "groundlings" in the pit walked and paid the lowest amount and stood for the play unless they brought stools. People sold food and drink, like vendors at a baseball game. Many of the shows we consider very serious have bawdy humor and puns that we miss.
The size of the city of London in Shakepeare's time was astonishingly small and very crowded and walking to almost any place was possible (subject to crime) Carriages were used to go out into the country, which might only be 5 or ten miles.
In this map
http://mapoflondon.uvic.ca/map.php
the portion with many streets can be matched via the names and the river shape, to Google Earth where distances can be measured and it is barely a mile by a half mile. Notice the empty country shown on the view around the town.
The population was 200,000 from below
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_London#Stuart_London_.281603.E2.80.931714.29
which points to a discussion of London at the time

Answer 2

During the early part of the 16th century, there were two distinct types of theatre in England. One was represented by small groups of professional actors who performed in halls, inns, or marketplaces. The location of a play was established by the words and gestures of the actors. As in the commedia dell'arte, these localities had little significance. The second type of theatre, found in the London area, was made up of amateurs, usually university students, performing for the royal court and assorted gentry. The audience and the actors were educated, acquainted with the classics, and knowledgeable about theatre in other countries, particularly France. The stage was probably set with buildings made of laths, covered with painted canvas, with cloud borders masking the upper part of the acting area.

The significant achievement of the Elizabethan stage was connected with the theatres of professional acting groups, not the court theatre. During the second half of the 16th century, as they became successful, the troupes no longer needed to remain itinerant. In 1576 the first permanent public theatre, called simply the Theatre, was erected by the actor James Burbage. The building boom continued until the end of the century; the Globe, where Shakespeare's plays were first performed, was built in 1599 with lumber from the demolished Theatre.

The typical Elizabethan stage was a platform, as large as 40 feet square (more than 12 metres on each side), sticking out into the middle of the yard so that the spectators nearly surrounded it. It was raised four to six feet and was sheltered by a roof, called "the shadow" or "the heavens." In most theatres the stage roof, supported by two pillars set midway at the sides of the stage, concealed an upper area from which objects could be raised or lowered. At the rear of the stage was a multileveled facade with two large doors at stage level. There was also a space for "discoveries" of hidden characters, in order to advance the plot; this was probably located between the doors. Some scenes took place in a playing area on the second level of the facade, but, again, historians disagree as to which scenes they were.

Properties were occasionally carried onto the platform stage, but from extant lists it is obvious that they were few in number. Some properties were so cumbersome that they remained onstage throughout a performance. Smaller properties were probably revealed in the discovery space, and servants carried some properties on and off. It appears that the audience was not concerned by the scenic inconsistencies.

All of the theatre buildings were round, square, or octagonal, with thatched roofs covering the structure surrounding an open courtyard. Spectators, depending on how much money they had, could either stand in the yard, which may have sloped toward the stage, sit on benches in the galleries that went around the greater part of the walls, sit in one of the private boxes, or sit on a stool on the stage proper.

The importance of this type of theatre was its flexibility. In some ways it was similar to earlier attempts to reconstruct the scaenae frons of the Romans; it had the facade and the entrance doors. The Elizabethan theatre differed in that it had a main platform, an inner stage, and an upper stage level that made movement possible in all directions instead of simply along the length of a narrow stage.

Answer 3

Dirty, smelly and crowded if you weren't from the upper class sitting in the canopied higher seats. The lower classes stood in the pit and threw food at the stage to show displeasure and also had no shame in talking, singing or insulting the actors on the stage. There were a lot of people there if a show was good who brought children and food. There are a lot of sources on this information in books and online as well.

Answer 4

My suggestion to you is to end dropping time pretending to be in touch in this finished "guidance" project and merely get a job the place you ask human beings in the event that they choose fries with that.