Elizabethan theatre
Globe-era dramatic venue
Elizabethan theatre refers to the drama and playhouses of England during Elizabeth I's reign (1558–1603), when Shakespeare, Marlowe, and their contemporaries flourished.
The term evokes open-air wooden theaters like the Globe, where plays were performed in daylight to audiences of all classes.
It marks a golden age of English drama: tragedy, comedy, and history plays performed on thrust stages with minimal scenery, elaborate costumes, and all-male casts.
The course covers Elizabethan theatre and its influence on modern drama.
- groundlingsStanding theater audience
- RenaissanceEuropean cultural reawakening
- open airUnenclosed outdoor space
- Tudor England1485-1603 English period
- masqueCourtly theatrical entertainment
William Shakespeare · trapdoor · morality plays · iambic pentameter · all the world's a stage · festival atmosphere · galleries · boy actors · stage directions · censorship laws · Christopher Marlowe · gender disguise · public entertainment · Humanism · prologue · London · bear baiting · social commentary
- ShakespeareRomeo, Juliet, Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello
- British TheatreWest End, Macbeth, Globe, King Lear, pantomime
- theater historyGreek tragedy, vaudeville, William Shakespeare, Drury Lane, Christopher Marlowe
- Early TheaterShakespeare, Marlowe, morality plays, mystery plays, playhouse
- Shakespeare studiesKing Lear, Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, Twelfth Night, Merchant of Venice
- Theatre Stylesmelodrama, naturalism, realism, expressionism, classicism
Elizabethan theatreVictorian theatre
1800s British stage entertainment
Broadway theatre · West End theatre · black box theatre · opera house · cinema
Elizabethan theatrecontemporary theatre
Current era's live drama
modern theatre · modern drama · naturalism · Victorian theatre · ancient Greek theatre
Elizabeth, Elizabethan, theatre, theater, theaters, theatres, theatrical, theatrically, theatricality