PeoplePlay UK - Elizabethan Theatre

Early Theatre in Britain

The Rise of Secular Drama

Elizabethan Theatre

The Globe

Shakespeare

The Court Masque

The Closure of the Theatres

Restoration Drama

Royal Patents

Restoration Actors

Shakespeare Engraving

In the late 16th century all classes of society (apart from royalty) visited the public theatres. The new theatres were popular and their audiences had a voracious appetite for new plays. New companies flourished and writers were employed to satisfy the demand for novelty.

Dr Faustus Title Page

Jude Law in Dr Faustus

The Acting Companies

Companies were hierarchical - actors who had a stake in the company were called ‘sharers’ and divided up the profit between them; ‘hirelings’ were just paid a weekly wage, whilst the boys who played women’s roles were ‘apprentices’ and paid very little. Actors specialised in specific roles which they performed as part of their repertoire.

Tamburlaine The Great

Will Kempe

The two most famous companies were the Admiral’s Men and the Lord Chamberlain’s Men who were rivals. Companies became known by the title of the patron’s household, for example ‘Leicester’s Men’ were named after the Earl of Leicester. Leicester’s Men consisted of actor James Burbage and four others.

William Shakespeare was principal writer with the Lord Chamberlain’s Men. Famous Elizabethan actors included Will Kempe, Edward Alleyn and Richard Burbage.

John Fletcher

Richard Burbage

Plays and Playwrights

Companies would perform between 30 to 40 new plays every year. Documentation from the period shows that the Admiral’s Men performed every afternoon for six days of 40 weeks of the year.

The Alchemist

Playwrights were expected to produce a number of new plays every year to satisfy demand. Many of these were never published. Plays, when written, became the property of the company and not the playwright. William Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Christopher Marlowe and John Fletcher were just a few of the many playwrights of that era whose work is still performed today.

Edward Kynaston

Michael Drayton

Alleyn, Edward

Alleyn (1566-1626) was one of the greatest actors of the Elizabethan stage, admired by authors Ben Jonson and Thomas Nashe for his interpretations of Christopher Marlowe's Tamburlaine, and Doctor Faustus, and of Robert Greene's Orlando Furioso. He became part owner in Philip Henslowe's theatrical empire when he married his step-daughter Joan Woodward, and later owned several theatres himself, including the Rose and the Fortune. He also founded Dulwich College, London.

Burbage, Richard

Burbage (c.1567-1619) was the son of the actor and theatre manager and owner James Burbage, and had attained wide popularity as an actor by age 20. He excelled in tragedy and was much in demand performing in works by Kyd and Jonson. But he is best known through his long association with Shakespeare. He was the first to perform many of the key Shakespearean roles including Richard III, Romeo, Henry V, Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello, and Lear.

Jonson, Ben

Poet and playwright, writing in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. Jonson was a controversial figure and in 1597 was imprisoned for his satirical writings. The following year he was jailed for killing a fellow actor in a duel. He wrote many plays, the most famous being the comedies, Volpone and The Alchemist. He also wrote masques for the Stuart court and became the first, unofficial, English Poet Laureate.

Marlowe, Christopher

A major Elizabethan poet and playwright, whose plays include Dr Faustus, Tamburlaine the Great, The Jew of Malta and Edward II. Marlowe was a key figure in the development of verse drama and was highly regarded as a poet. He led a turbulent life and died in a fight in a London tavern, aged only 29.