4 Theatre History Midterm Study Guide

Renaissance

"Rebirth," the period from roughly the 14th to 17th centuries marked by renewed interest in classical learning, humanism, and the arts. In England it flourished in the 16th and early 17th centuries.

Elizabethan Period

The reign of Elizabeth I (1558-1603). Professional commercial theatre grew rapidly in London, and playwrights like Marlowe and Shakespeare worked in this period. The reign of James I (1603-1625) is called Jacobean.

British Commonwealth/Interregnum

The period (1649-1660) after the execution of Charles I when England was governed without a monarch under Puritan influence. Parliament closed the theatres in 1642, and they stayed shut until the Restoration in 1660.

Protestant Reformation

The 16th-century religious movement that broke from the Roman Catholic Church. In England, the break under Henry VIII led to the suppression of the medieval religious cycle plays and to censorship of religious subjects on stage, pushing drama toward secular topics.

School Drama

Plays performed by schoolboys and university students, often in Latin (Plautus and Terence) to teach rhetoric and language. It trained future playwrights, and professional boy companies also grew out of choir schools.

University Wits

A group of university-educated playwrights of the 1580s and 1590s, including Marlowe, Thomas Kyd, Robert Greene, Thomas Nashe, George Peele, and John Lyly. They brought classical learning and poetic ambition to the commercial stage.

Christopher Marlowe

(1564-1593) A leading University Wit known for Tamburlaine, Doctor Faustus, The Jew of Malta, and Edward II. He is famous for his "mighty line" of blank verse and for heroes with extreme ambition. He died young in a fight.

Iambic Pentameter

A line of verse with ten syllables in five unstressed-stressed pairs (da-DUM, da-DUM…). Unrhymed iambic pentameter is called blank verse and was the dominant form of Elizabethan drama.

The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus

Marlowe's tragedy (c. 1592) about a scholar who sells his soul to the devil for 24 years of knowledge and power. It blends medieval morality play elements (Good and Bad Angels, the Seven Deadly Sins, hell-mouth) with Renaissance ambition and questioning.

Revenge Tragedy

A popular genre in which a hero seeks vengeance for a murder, often featuring ghosts, madness, a play-within-a-play, and bloody climaxes. It was influenced by the Roman writer Seneca. Examples include Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy and Shakespeare's Hamlet.

William Shakespeare

(1564-1616) Actor, sharer in his company, and the leading playwright of the era, with around 37 plays plus sonnets. He worked with the Lord Chamberlain's/King's Men.

Hamlet or Twelfth Night (Video)

This refers to the assigned video, so use your viewing notes. Hamlet is a revenge tragedy about a prince avenging his father's murder. Twelfth Night is a comedy of disguise and mistaken identity in which Viola dresses as a man, which also plays on the fact that boys performed female roles.

Shakespearean Genres (Comedy, Tragedy, History)

The three categories used in the First Folio. Comedies usually end in marriage and restored order. Tragedies end with the fall or death of the protagonist. Histories dramatize the reigns of English kings.

Lord Chamberlain's Men/King's Men

Shakespeare's company, formed in 1594 under the patronage of the Lord Chamberlain. When James I became king in 1603, it became the King's Men under royal patronage.

Globe Theatre

The open-air public playhouse built in 1599 on London's Bankside for the Chamberlain's Men. It burned in 1613 during a performance of Henry VIII, was rebuilt in 1614, and was closed in 1642. A modern reconstruction opened in 1997.

Sharing System/Sharing Company

The company's business model. Senior members (sharers) owned shares in the company, paying expenses and splitting profits, which tied their income to the company's success.

Admiral's Men/Prince Henry's Men

The Lord Admiral's company, the main rival of the Chamberlain's Men, led by star actor Edward Alleyn and managed by Philip Henslowe. It became Prince Henry's Men in 1603.

First Folio

The 1623 collected edition of Shakespeare's plays, put together by fellow actors John Heminges and Henry Condell. It contains 36 plays, about half of which might otherwise have been lost.

Folio and Quarto Printings

A folio is a large, prestigious book (such as the First Folio). A quarto is a small, cheap printing of a single play, and some are unreliable ("bad quartos").

Comedy of Humors

A style of comedy, especially associated with Ben Jonson, based on the idea that four bodily humors (blood, phlegm, yellow bile, black bile) shape personality. Characters are dominated by one exaggerated trait.

Ben Jonson

(1572-1637) Playwright, poet, and Shakespeare's rival. Known for satirical comedies such as Volpone, The Alchemist, and Every Man in His Humour, and for court masques. He published his own Works in 1616, an unusual step for a playwright.

Court Masque

A lavish courtly entertainment combining poetry, music, dance, costume, and spectacle, usually allegorical and flattering to the monarch. Courtiers, and sometimes royals, took part.

Inigo Jones

(1573-1652) Architect and designer who collaborated with Jonson on masques. He brought Italian perspective scenery and the proscenium stage to England.

Italianate Scenic Design (Proscenium, Perspective)

The Italian Renaissance approach in which a proscenium arch frames the stage like a picture and painted scenery uses perspective to create the illusion of depth.

Public vs. Private Theatres

Public theatres (such as the Globe) were large, open-air, daylight playhouses with cheap admission and a mixed audience. Private theatres (such as Blackfriars) were smaller, indoor, artificially lit, more expensive, and drew a more elite audience. The King's Men began using Blackfriars in 1609.

Yard or Pit

The open area in front of the stage in a public theatre where the cheapest audience members stood.

Groundlings

The audience members who paid the lowest price (about a penny) to stand in the yard.

Galleries

Roofed, tiered seating around the walls of the theatre, costing more than standing in the yard.

De Witt Drawing (Swan Theatre)

A sketch of the Swan Theatre's interior made around 1596 by Johannes de Witt, a Dutch visitor (known through a copy by Arend van Buchel). It is the only surviving contemporary interior view of an Elizabethan playhouse, but it is a simple sketch and must be used with caution.

Tiring House

The backstage area ("attiring house") where actors dressed and waited, with doors opening onto the stage and often a gallery above for musicians or scenes at an upper level.

Patronage

Companies needed the sponsorship of a noble or the monarch. Under law, actors were considered the servants of a nobleman, which kept them from being treated as vagrants.

Licensing of Theatre Companies

Companies needed official permission to perform, and plays were reviewed by the Master of the Revels for censorship. The number of licensed companies was tightly limited.

Company Structure (Sharers, Hired Men, Apprentices)

Sharers were senior actors who owned shares in the company. Hired men were paid wages and had no stake in profits. Apprentices were boys trained by sharers who played female roles.

Richard Burbage

(c. 1568-1619) The leading tragic actor of the Chamberlain's/King's Men and a shareholder in the Globe. He originated roles such as Hamlet, Richard III, Othello, and Lear. His father, James Burbage, built The Theatre (1576).

Will Kempe

The leading comic actor of the Chamberlain's Men until about 1599, known for clowning and jig dancing. He was later replaced by Robert Armin, whose different style shaped Shakespeare's later fools.

Philip Henslowe

A theatre owner and businessman who owned the Rose and the Fortune and managed the Admiral's Men. His surviving diary is a major source of information on theatre finances and practices.

Sides

An actor's individual script containing only his own lines and short cues, rather than the whole play.

Plots

Backstage outlines of a play's scene order, entrances, and props, posted for the company's use.

Prompter/Bookholder

The person who held the master copy of the play (the "book"), prompted actors who forgot their lines, and managed cues and entrances.