1. Whereabout in London were the Theatres located? Why?

In the "Liberties",outside the City walls and on the south bank of the river, called Southwark. Because the City Council (guilds) together with the Puritans did not approve of the playhouses.

2. Name the most important theatres during Elizabethan times.

Fortune , Globe , Hope, Red Bull , Rose, Swan , Theatre & the
Whitefriars Theatre

3. Which was the first playhouse in London? Who built it?

The Theatre was the first public playhouse of London, located in the parish of St. Leonard's, Shoreditch. It was designed and built by James Burbage (the father of actor Richard Burbage).

4. When was it built? When was it closed?

It opened in 1576. After the death of James Burbage in February 1597, the theatre's lease ended. In 1598 the building was dismantled, and Burbage's sons, Cuthbert and Richard, used its timbers to construct the first Globe Theatre.

5. Describe the particular shape of the theatres . Where did they take this shape from?

The theatres were circular, open-air buildings, surrounded an open yard (like the Inn-Yards) with the stage at one end, jutting out into the audience to about half the depth of the theatre; the width was considerably more. Round three sides of the yard were three tiers of galleries where the wealthier or superior members of the audience sat; the rest of the audience stood in the open yard around the stage and (for obvious reasons) they were known as 'the Groundlings'.

The original Theatre was designed in a mix of traditions. Its name drew attention to the Roman theatre tradition. Its circular shape, though, reflected not the Roman D but the gatherings of crowds in town marketplaces, where all the players of 1576 got their training. Building a scaffold with three levels of galleries surrounding a circular yard copied the arrangement for audiences of existing bearbaiting and bullbaiting houses. The stage, a platform mounted in the yard, was the kind of thing that traveling companies set up in inn yards.

6. Who controlled the performances on behalf of the government?

The person who controlled the performances of plays on behalf of the government was the Master of Revels. In the 1590s this was a man called Edmund Tilney.

7. Why could the theatres be closed down ?

Playhouses could be closed for many reasons, among them outbreaks of the plague, sedition and immorality, which would certainly have included women appearing on stage.

8. Who played the parts of women on stage? Why?

Young men, as it was thought immoral for women to act in plays, even to attend the playhouses. 

9. Did women attend the theatre?

Yes, women did attend the theatre although this was not formally approved of. In fact, every level of society went to the plays including apprentices, law students, craftsmen, pickpockets, ballad sellers, merchants and nobility.

Even legend says Queen Elizabeth attended the Globe secretly some times.

10. How much did it cost to stand in the yard ? And to sit in a gallery? And to have a cushion? And to sit in the lords' room?

To stand in the yard - One penny

To sit in the gallery - Two pennies

To have a cushion - Three pennies

To sit in the Lords' room - Sixpence

1. What was the name of the company Shakespeare belonged to ?

Lord Chamberlain's Men ( Later The King's Men )

2. How many companies were licensed to perform in London ? Only 2.

3. Why did Shakespeare's company build the Globe ?

Shakespeare's company only built the Globe because they could not use the special playhouse that their chief actor Richard Burbage's father had built for them in 1596, a roofed theatre inside the city, in Blackfriars.

James Burbage had a long history as a theatrical entrepreneur. In 1576 he built the first successful amphitheatre, known as The Theatre, in a London suburb. Twenty years later, when the lease on The Theatre's land was about to expire, he built the Blackfriars as its replacement. But the wealthy residents of Blackfriars got the government to block its use for plays, so his capital was locked up uselessly.

4. Who built the Globe ?

It was built by two brothers, Cuthbert and Richard Burbage, who inherited its predecessor, The Theatre, from their father, James.

5. Who did the Globe belong to ?

Half the shares in the new theatre were kept by the Burbages. The rest were assigned equally to Shakespeare and other members of the Chamberlain's Men (the company of players who acted there), of which Richard Burbage was principal actor and of which Shakespeare had been a leading member since late 1594.

It was the lack of money to pay for it that produced the new consortium. The Burbage sons' inheritance was tied up in the Blackfriars, so extra finance was needed. That was why Shakespeare and another four of his fellows were made co-owners of the new Globe.

5. What did Shakespeare's company use to build the Globe ?

The Theatre had closed, ostensibly for good, in 1597, and the owner of the land on which it stood threatened to pull the building down once the lease had expired. The Burbages and their associates anticipated the threat, however, and in late 1598 dismantled The Theatre and carried the materials to Bankside (a district of Southwark stretching for about half a mile west of London Bridge on the south bank of the River Thames).

Without The Theatre, the company had to rent a playhouse. Then at the end of 1598 they decided to build one for themselves. The shortage of cash made the consortium reluctant traditionalists, giving up the idea of an indoor theatre in the city and using the old Theatre's timbers and therefore the same basic auditorium shape for the new building. The old playhouse was one of their few remaining resources. They could not use it in situ because the lease had expired, so they dismantled it and took the timbers (illegally) to make the skeleton of their new amphitheatre. The Globe was a cut-price and fortuitous construction.

6. When the Globe was built , there were two other theatres in Southwark already. Which ones ? The Swan and The Rose

7. When was the Globe built ?It was probably completed by the autumn of 1599 .

8. How and when was it destroyed ?

In 1613, during a performance of Henry VIII, the thatch of the Globe was accidentally set alight by a cannon, set off to mark the King's entrance onstage in a scene at Cardinal Wolsey's palace. The entire theatre was destroyed within the hour.

9. When was it rebuilt ?

By June 1614 it had been rebuilt, this time with a tiled gallery roof and a circular shape.

10. When was it finally pulled down ? Why ?

It was pulled down in 1644, two years after the Puritans closed all theatres, to make way for tenement dwellings.

11. Explain how acting at the Globe was like.

Acting at the Globe was radically different from viewing modern Shakespeare on screen.

The plays were staged in the afternoons, using the light of day. Therefore, all references to weather or time of the day had to be given to the audience through the text.

The audience surrounded the stage on all sides. No scenery was used, except for occasional emblematic devices like a throne or a bed. It was almost impossible not to see the other half of the audience standing behind the players. Consequently much of the staging was metatheatrical, conceding the illusory nature of the game of playing, and making little pretense to stage realism .