Elizabethan Theatre & Jacobean Theatre

Elizabethan Theatre Building of the first playhouse in 1576 by James Burbage called simply the Theatre. Others followed – the Curtain, the Rose, the Swan, the Globe where most of Shakepeare’s plays were performed on stage. Large numbers of people could be accommodated, and the price was kept low at between 1p and 6p.

This type of stage allowed for fluid movement and considerable intimacy between actors and audience, while its lack of scenery placed the emphasis firmly on the actor interpreting the playwright's words. No women appeared on the Elizabethan stage; female roles were taken either by boy actors or, in the case of older women, by adult male comedians

Jacobean Theatre Writers of the Jacobean period such as John Webster, Thomas Middleton, and John Ford favoured a more definite separation of comedy and tragedy than had been the case in Elizabethan drama. They were given to sensationalism in their revenge plays, finding inspiration in the darker moods of Seneca and often setting them in Italy.

masque--a sumptuous allegorical entertainment combining poetry, music, dance, scenery, and extravagant costumes. When the Civil War broke out in 1642, the Puritans closed all the theatres and forbade dramatic performances of any kind. This created an almost complete break in the acting tradition for 18 years until the Restoration of Charles II, after which the theatre flourished once more, though on quite different lines.