Chapter 5: Creating a Professional Theatre

English Decree of 1558

A decree banning plays on religious and political subjects in Elizabethan England.

Elizabethan Theatre Patronage

Noblemen served as patrons to legitimize actor companies, though providing little financial support.

Masterless Men

The status of Elizabethan actors because acting did not fit into the guild system.

Elizabethan Performance Schedule

Performed 6 days per week in the afternoon, usually changing the bill daily.

The Yard (Globe Theatre)

The open, unroofed space enclosed by galleries where the cheapest admission stood.

Spoken Décor

An Elizabethan theatrical convention where location was clarified by dialogue rather than scenery.

Jig

A short, lively music-and-dance piece concluding most Elizabethan theatre performances.

Blank Verse

Dramatic poetry that retains the flexibility of normal speech while formalizing it.

Iambic Pentameter

A speech rhythm of unstressed-stressed patterns making up 5 "feet" per line.

1642

The year English public theatres were closed due to the civil war.

De Architectura

A classical treatise by Vitruvius that influenced Renaissance Italian theatre layout and settings.

Proscenium Arch

An Italian Renaissance innovation that framed painted scenery and completed the perspective picture.

Intermezzi

Italian musical and mythological interludes performed between the acts of regular plays.

Opera

A theatrical form originating in the 1590s combining drama, music, dance, and spectacle.

Commedia dell'Arte

A professional Italian form translated as "comedy of professional artists."

Scenario

A summary of situations, complications, and outcomes functioning as a Commedia script.

Lazzi

Improvised bits of comic business used in Commedia dell'Arte.

Pantalone

A Commedia stock character; an elderly, frugal Venetian merchant master.

Dottore

A Commedia stock character; a supposedly intelligent but easily tricked lawyer or doctor.

Capitano

A Commedia stock character; a boasting braggart who is actually a coward.

Arlecchino (Harlequin)

The most popular Commedia servant character, known for acrobatics and using a slapstick.

The Servant of Two Masters

A 1745 play by Carlo Goldoni written down to limit Commedia's improvisational elements.

French Neoclassical Genres

Tragedy (dealing with royalty) and Comedy (dealing with middle/lower classes) must not mix.

Neoclassical Unities

The rules of Time (24 hours), Place (one location), and Action (one plot).

17th-Century French Casting

Unlike Elizabethan England, French acting companies included both male and female actors.

Deus ex Machina

The happy, sudden resolution mechanism used at the end of Molière's Tartuffe.