Actors Expert fencers Expert dancers Excellent speakers Most trained from birth Dangerous during fight scenes Played many roles in a play Boys played girls and women roles Never did the same play two days in a row (Repertory system)

Scenery/Setting/Props Elaborate costumes, platform stage No scenery, rather audiences used their imaginations Sound effects & special effects (cranes used to remove actors)

The Globe Was taken apart timber by timber and rowed across the river, where it was later reconstructed Nicknamed the “Wooden O” Front part had a trapdoor Rear part had a curtained area with an upper stage called “The Heavens” Shakespeare’s greatest plays were performed there. Burnt down in 1613

Shakespeare’s Life His birthday is celebrated April 23 because he died on that day in 1616 He married Anne Hathaway and they had 3 children He was one of few people who wrote and acted in plays Before retiring, he wrote 37 plays

Elizabethan Theater/Audience Called arena stages, thrust stages, and open stages Made audience a part of the action Plat forms set up where ever possible, courtyard inns Audience= 3 side, more money means more chairs and balconies (eat & drink) James Burbage made the first theater in 1576 outside London called “The Theater”

Poetic Style Shakespeare used many different techniques in his play writes such as: Blank Verse- unrhymed iambic pentameter Iambic Pentameter- Each line of poetry in the play is built on five iambs Iamb- Consists of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable (like the word “prepare”) Pentameter- Five iambs in a line End-Stopped Line- Lines that end with a punctuation mark Run-On Lines- Lines that do not end with punctuation marks