The New Globe Theatre in Southwark is a major attraction for many visitors to London. The company in which Shakespeare had a stake built it in London in 1599. The Globe Theatre was really popular and plays were huge! With a constant demand for new material, as soon as a play had been written it was immediately produced. In Elizabethan times due to the huge success of the theatres a law was introduced forbidding them to open on Thursdays so that other industries would not be neglected.
Audiences never had time to get bored at the Globe. In just two weeks Elizabethan theatres could present around ten different plays. The techniques used often involved actors not knowing their parts or lines until just before a performance and they often did “cue acting” which meant people backstage whispered the lines to them. It is believed that as well as being a playwright; Shakespeare also played smaller roles in a variety of his own plays, including King Duncan in Macbeth, Hamlets father in Hamlet and King Henry in Henry IV.
In Elizabethan times theatre productions were often performed in the afternoons, as there was no artificial lighting back then. Men and Women both attended plays though women would often wear a mask to disguise their identities. It was also unheard of for women to act and instead young boys played the female characters. The plays were always extremely popular and only dropped during the bubonic plague, which happened more often than not leaving Shakespeare to write more plays at his home in Stratford.
Audiences never had time to get bored at the Globe. In just two weeks Elizabethan theatres could present around ten different plays. The techniques used often involved actors not knowing their parts or lines until just before a performance and they often did “cue acting” which meant people backstage whispered the lines to them. It is believed that as well as being a playwright; Shakespeare also played smaller roles in a variety of his own plays, including King Duncan in Macbeth, Hamlets father in Hamlet and King Henry in Henry IV.
In Elizabethan times theatre productions were often performed in the afternoons, as there was no artificial lighting back then. Men and Women both attended plays though women would often wear a mask to disguise their identities. It was also unheard of for women to act and instead young boys played the female characters. The plays were always extremely popular and only dropped during the bubonic plague, which happened more often than not leaving Shakespeare to write more plays at his home in Stratford.