1.

Introduction The aristocrat city of London in the XVI century became the most important centre of the English Renaissance Theatre, and the birth of the Elizabethan theatre. From the medieval traditions, the theatre covered different

assignments as a social tool. Working in the form of miracle plays, included in the religious events, retelling legends based on biblical themes, initially performed in cathedrals later becoming more related to the secular celebrations that grew up around religious festivals. Other types of performance were the morality plays and the University Drama which attempted to recreate Greek tragedy, and as a result of exchange with the Italian tradition, Commedia Dellarte and the masques frequently presented at court. Patronage was the word of the day and so, companies of players attached to households of leading noblemen, like John Brayne who built the first playhouse in Queen Elizabeths reign, The Red Lion, performing seasonally in various locations, before the reign of Elizabeth I. These became the foundation for the professional players that performed on the Elizabethan stage. In London, authorities were hostile to public performances specially because of the Bubonic Plague (or Black Death), where the massive audience posed as a real health hazard. However its hostility was overmatched by the Queen Elizabeths taste for plays and the Privy Council's support. Under her reign, the drama was a unified expression as far as social class was concerned and the Court watched the same plays the commoners saw in the public playhouses. With the development of the private theatres, drama became more oriented toward the tastes and values of an upper-class audience. By the later part of the reign of Charles I, few new plays were being written for the public theatres, which sustained themselves on the

accumulated works of the previous decades.

2. Theatre building As a smaller version of the Roman Coliseum, the theaters were usually built of timber, lath and plaster and with thatched roofs, the early theatres were vulnerable to fire, and were replaced (when necessary) with stronger structures. When the Globe burned down in June 1613, it was rebuilt with a tile roof; when the Fortune burned down in December 1621; it was rebuilt in brick (and apparently was no longer square).

different which

model came

was into

developed with the Blackfriars Theatre, regular use on a long-term basis in 1599. The Blackfriars was small earlier in comparison and to the theatres roofed

rather than open to the sky; it resembled a modern theatre in ways that its predecessors did not. Other small-enclosed theatres followed, notably the Whitefriars (1608) and the Cockpit (1617). With the building of the Salisbury Court Theatre in 1629 near the site of the defunct Whitefriars, the London audience had six theatres to choose from: three surviving large open-air "public" theatres, the Globe, the Fortune, and the Red Bull, and three smaller enclosed "private" theatres, the Blackfriars, the Cockpit, and the Salisbury Court . Around 1580, the total theatre capacity of London was about 5000 spectators. With the building of new theatre facilities and the formation of new companies, the capital's total theatre capacity exceeded 10,000 after 1610. In 1580, the poorest citizens could purchase admittance to the Curtain or the Theatre for a penny. In 1640, it was possible gain admittance to the Globe, the Cockpit, or the Red Bullfor exactly the same price.

3. Audience The playhouses in Elizabethan Theater were the convergence of all

the social strata in London, from the Royalty and nobles to the commoners or also called groundlings or stinkards. The first two would always sit on the better seats of the playhouse, normally at the sides of the stage, and the groundlings would stand on the pit in front of the stage. 4. Actors Actors role changed since the beginning of the English Renaissance Theater. At first they were seen as Rogues and Vagabonds and were not trusted