BY OLIVIA KINANE Elizabethan Playhouses

Elizabethan Theater Plays were originally performed in private London Inns, or in Inns yards, they could have an audience of around 500 people in it, this was a relatively cheep way of performing. Open air amphitheatres, this was coliseum like theatres out doors, that could have an audience of around 1500 t people. Play houses, were more selective, you could only get in as long you paid, and because of this the audiences were more selective. They were small private indoor halls that seated around 500.

Inns and Yards of London The Inns and Yards where plays were able to be performed The Bull-Inn The Bell Savage The Cross Keys The Bell The White Hart The George Inn

Play Houses of London St Pauls The Blackfriars The Cockpit (as seen in pic) Sailsbury Court Grays Inn Theatre Middle Temple Inn Theatre Whitehall Theatre Whitefriars

St Pauls A private theatre in the precinct of St Pauls, choirs from churches were often encouraged to perform in the plays and productions Queen Elizabeth especially loved the choir boys acting in the plays and soon there was a growing market for child actors, and children's acting companies Specialised in putting on performances for the royal and Nobel households and families The theatre group that always performed there were known as Pauls Pigeons The Theatre was destroyed in the fire of London in 1666

The Black Friars James Burbage bought the land on which there used to be a Dominican monastery, the monestery and the estate became known as the “Blackfriars” because of the black robes the Dominican monks used to wear. One of the buildings on the estate was leased to a choir group, ‘The children of the chapel royal’, the choir group also doubled as child actors and they put on performances as well as other theatre groups

The Cockpit - later named the Phoenix theatre The Cockpit, Drury Lane London The Cockpit started off being a place for Cock fights, but was later turned into a theatre, but after rioting in London in 1617 only a year later it was burnt down. After the riots it was rebuilt, an the name changed to the Phoenix, as it had ‘risen out of the ashes’ There was a troupe called the“Beeston boys” after the leader of the group Christopher Beeston, who was from Queen Anne's Men

Open Air Amphitheatres of London The Curtian The Rose The Swan The Globe The Fourtune The Bores Head The Red Bull The Bull Ring The Hope

The Curtain The curtain was opened in 1577, in an area called Curtain Close, Finsbury Fields. This was the second public theatre to be opened in L0ndon A Theatrical entrepreneur named Henry Lanman was responsible for its creation and was the theatres manager until 1592 Many theatre groups performed there such as the Chamberlains men, and Shakespeare’s theatre group performed there while they waited for the globe to be built.

The Rose Phillip Henslow built the Rose in 1587, and it was the first bank side playhouse in Southwark The Admirals men were the theatre group that occupied The Rose, until 1600 when they moved to the newly built Fortune playhouse. The theatre group that took over from them was the theatre group that was originally from the Boars head, Worchester's men. Like many the Rose had a flag pole on its roof, and they rose the flag on days when there was a performance on

The Globe The Globe was the first theatre to copy the design of the Coliseum, the amphitheatre. James Burbage, built a theatre, named ‘the Theatre’ on a land with a 21 year lease. When the lease was up the puritan refused to re-new it. So Burbage and Shakespeare built the Globe with the ‘stolen’ materials from ‘the Theatre’ The original Globe burnt down in 1513, but was quickly rebuilt in 1515 The motto of the Globe was “the whole world is a playhouse”

Theatre facts The Theatres were so popular that when the plague was spreading the theatres were forced to close because it was the easiest way to get infected Different coloured flags were raised to reflect what the style of play was currently performing, comedy, romance ect The popularity of watching performances was so great that the theatres were forced to close on Thursdays so that Bull and Bear bating could still happen, because they didn’t want the ‘art form’ to be forgotten.

BIBLIOGRAPHY theatre-facts.htm theatre-facts.htm