"A performance in progress at the Swan theatre in London in 1596," sketch by Aernout van Buchel. (CC0, Public Domain)
Acting Companies and Their Plays in Shakespeare's London
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Acting Companies and their Plays in Shakespeare's London explores the intimate and dynamic relationship between acting companies and playwrights in this seminal era in English theatre history. Siobhan Keenan's analysis includes chapters on the traditions and workings of contemporary acting companies, playwriting practices, stages and staging, audiences and patrons, each illustrated with detailed case studies of individual acting companies and their plays, including troupes such as Lady Elizabeth's players, 'Beeston's Boys' and the King's Men and works by Shakespeare, Jonson, Middleton, Brome and Heywood. We are accustomed to focusing on individual playwrights: Acting Companies and their Plays in Shakespeare's London makes the case that we also need to think about the companies for which dramatists wrote and with whose members they collaborated, if we wish to better understand the dramas of the English Renaissance stage.
Playing Companies and Commerce in Shakespeare's Time
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Playing Companies and Commerce in Shakepeare's Time examines the nature of commercial relations among the theatre companies in London during the time of Shakespeare. Roslyn Knutson argues that the playing companies cooperated in the adoption of business practices that would enable the theatrical enterprise to flourish. Suggesting the guild as a model of economic cooperation, Knutson considers the networks of fellowship among players, the marketing strategies of the repertory, and company relationships with playwrights and members of the book trade. The book challenges two entrenched views about theatrical commerce: that companies engaged in cut-throat rivalry to drive one another out of business, and that companies based business decisions on the personal and professional quarrels of the players and dramatists with whom they worked. This important contribution to theatre history will be of interest to scholars as well as historians.
The Best Actors in the World: Shakespeare and his acting company
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Shakespeare knew actors because he was one. The first book-length study of its kind, this volume investigates Shakespeare as a member of his acting company, dating and casting all the plays they presented from 1594 to 1614, and exploring the effects of actors on his writing. Much has been written about Shakespeare and a great deal is known about the Elizabethan theater. Yet little has been done to examine Shakespeare in relation to his acting company. This book casts light on Shakespeare's life in drama and the creation and staging of his plays. More precisely than any other work, it establishes the dates for his company's productions, exploring the varied and profound influences actors had on the works of Renaissance dramatists, and giving us a unique look at the man who knew his actors best of all. As a member of the newly organized Chamberlain's Men, a company that rose to fame in the London theater, Shakespeare experienced the numerous crises, both personal and political, that nearly destroyed the company at the construction of the Globe. Grote describes the company's reorganization as the King's Men, which led to the writing of Shakespeare's great tragedies, as well as the trials of the plague years, Shakespeare's retirement from the stage, the development of writers to replace him, and the burning of the Globe.
The Development of the English Playhouse
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For drama students and for specialists in the history of theater and stage design. Contents: Medieval Origins and Renaissance Influences -- The Emergence of playhouse forms -- Actor, audience and the perspective scene -- The elements of a developing playhouse -- The fan-shaped auditorium -- The retreat from the proscenium stage -- The growth of spectacle -- Picture-frames and proscenium walls -- The stage as a machine -- The growth of controls -- Stage reformed and safety theatres -- The traditional picture-frame theatre.
Theatre and Playhouse
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Shows different types of theaters and the evolution of their design, and examines stages, scenery, and acoustics. Contents
Early Greece: rectangular and timber theatres -- Circles, sight-lines, and raised stages -- Stage and scenery -- The Roman theatre -- Churches, places and pageants -- Classical rebirth and perspective scene -- French tennis courts, parterres, and amphitheatres -- Bulls, bears, and actors: the Elizabethan stage -- Changeable scenes and court masques -- Public theatres and opera houses -- The Restoration playhouse and the fan-shaped auditorium -- Scenic spectacle and civic pride --- Safety and acoustics -- The provincial theatre -- Sound, vision, economics, and the picture frame -- Machines and fly towers -- A return to the fan shaped auditorium -- Realism and stage mechanics -- Lighting and sky domes -- Adaptable auditoria -- Shakespearian revivals and the intimate theatre -- Actor and audience in a single space -- The picture-frame thatre of the 'thirties -- The non-existent proscenium opening -- The open stage -- Three-sided thrust stages -- The pictorial thrust stage -- Theaters in the round -- Flexible theatres -- Experimental drama studios -- Courtyard theatres -- The open picture stage -- The single chamber theatre.
"Elizabethan theatre, sometimes called English Renaissance theatre, refers to that style of performance plays which blossomed during the reign of Elizabeth I of England (r. 1558-1603 CE) and which continued under her Stuart successors. Elizabethan theatre witnessed the first professional actors who belonged to touring troupes and who performed plays of blank verse with entertaining non-religious themes.
The first purpose-built permanent theatre was established in London in 1576 CE and others quickly followed so that drama simply to entertain became a booming industry. Theatres showing plays daily led to permanent acting companies which did not have to tour and so could invest more time and money into wowing their audience of both sexes and all social classes. The most celebrated playwright of the period was William Shakespeare (1564-1616 CE) whose works were performed at the famous Globe Theatre in London and covered such diverse themes as history, romance, revenge, murder, comedy and tragedy." -- World History Encyclopedia
Shakespeare by Stages
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In this engaging text, Arthur Kinney introduces students to Shakespeare's plays in the context of Elizabethan and Jacobean theater. Introduces students to Shakespeare's plays in the context of Elizabethan and Jacobean theater. Focuses on the material conditions of playing and of playgoing. Covers venues, audiences, actors, society, government and regulation. Each topic is considered in relation to a selection of Shakespeare's plays. Shows students how the plays and the context in which they were produced illuminate one another.
Essays on Shakespeare and Elizabethan Drama
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Hardin Craig / Richard Hosley -- The contribution of the interludes to Elizabethan staging / Richard Southern -- Trissino's Art of poetry / Marvin T. Herrick -- The Spanish tragedy, or Babylon revisited / S.F. Johnson -- Intrigue in Elizabethan tragedy / Alfred Harbage -- Robert Greene as dramatist / Kenneth Muir -- Marlowe's Dido and the tradition / Don Cameron Allen -- Marlowe's humor / Clifford Leech -- Marlowe's Doctor Faustus and the Eldritch tradition / Muriel C. Bradbrook -- Marlowe's "tragicke glasse" / Irving Ribner -- More Shakespeare sonnet groups / Brents Stirling -- Three homilies in The comedy of errors / T.W. Baldwin -- Pyramus and Thisbe once more / Madeleine Doran -- Henry V as heroic comedy / Roy W. Battenhouse -- Tudor intelligence tests: Malvolio and real life / C.J. Sisson -- Hamlet's defense of the players / William A. Ringler, Jr. -- Hamlet's fifth soliloquy, 3.2.406-17 / Fredson Bowers -- 'Greeks' and 'Merrygreeks': a background to Timon of Athens and Troilus and Cressida / T.J.B. Spencer -- Recognition in The winter's tale / Northrop Frye -- Repeated situations in Shakespeare's plays / Matthew W. Black -- Stage imagery in Shakespeare's plays / Clifford Lyons -- Engagement and detachment in Shakespeare's plays / Maynard Mack -- Francis Bacon on the drama / Paul H. Kocher -- The revenger's tragedy and the virtue of anonymity / Allardyce Nicoll -- Italian Favole boscarecce and Jacobean stage pastoralism / John Leon Lievsay -- Thomas Heywood's dramatic art / Arthur Brown -- Massinger the censor / Philip Edwards -- Lenten performances in the Jacobean and Caroline theaters / G.E. Bentley -- The return of the open stage / George F. Reynolds -- Bibliographay of the writings of Hardin Craig from 1940 to 1961 / J. M. Braffett.
English Renaissance Drama: a very brief introduction to theatre and theatres in Shakespeare's time
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This generous 184-page study guide aims to introduce students with little or no prior experience of the field to the conclusions of recent scholarship and research into theatrical conditions, conventions and concepts in the time of Shakespeare.
Shakespeare's Contemporaries
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Introduction -- Anonymous -- The hybrid image in farce / Bernard Spivack -- Cambises / Willard Farnham -- Lyly / Wilson Knight -- Peele's "Old Wives's Tale / Harold Jenkins -- The Function of the Double Plot / William Empson -- The Uses of Rhetoric / Wolfgang Clemen -- The Theme and Structure of "The Spanish Tragedy" / Philip Edwards -- Humor in "Tamburlaine" / Paul H. Kocher -- The Dramatic Structure of Marlowe's "Tamburlaine the Great," Part I and II -- The Second Part of "Tamburlaine the Great" / Helen Gardner -- The tragedy of Marlowe's "Doctor Faustus" / Arthur Mizener -- The Damnation of Faustus / W.W. Greg -- The Tragedy of "The Jew of Malta" / F.S. Boas -- State Overturned / Harry Levin -- Marlowe's "Edward II" and the Tudor History Play / Irving Ribner -- "Arden of Feversham" / Louis Gillet -- Thomas Dekker / Una Ellis-Fermor -- Renaissance psychology in "A Woman Killed with Kindness" / Hardin Craig -- The Comic Humours: A New Interpretation / Henry L. Snuggs -- The Double Plot in "Volpone" / Jonas A. Barish -- "The Alchemist" / C.H. Herford and Percy Simpson -- Unifying Symbols in the Comedy of Ben Jonson / Ray L. Heffner, Jr. -- Reason and Passion in Marston's "The Dutch Courtezan" / Theodore Spencer -- Fate and Chance in "The Duchess of Malfi" / Muriel C. Bradbrook -- "Courtly reward and punishment": An Interpretation of "The White Devil" / Travis Bogard -- "Royal Man": Notes on the Tragedies of George Chapman / Edwin Muir -- "The Revenger's Tragedy": a Study in Irony / Peter Lisca -- "Philaster" and "Cymbeline" / Harold S. Wilson -- The Dramatic Structure of "The Changeling" / Karl L. Holzknecht -- Social Morality in "A New Way to Pay Old Debts / L.C. Knights -- The Last Jacobean Tragedy / Clifford Leech -- Elizabethan Revenge Tragedy and "The Cardinal" / Fredson T. Bowers.
100 Great Monologues from the Renaissance Theatre
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One hundred great monologues from the English Renaissance theatre.
The Routledge Anthology of Renaissance Drama
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This anthology offers a full introduction to Renaissance theatre in its historical and political context, along with newly edited and thoroughly annotated texts of the following plays: * The Spanish Tragedy (Thomas Kyd) * Arden of Faversham (Anon.) * Edward II (Christopher Marlowe) * A Woman Killed with Kindness (Thomas Heywood) * The Tragedy of Mariam (Elizabeth Cary) * The Masque of Blackness (Ben Jonson) * The Knight of the Burning Pestle (Francis Beaumont) * Epicoene, or the Silent Woman (Ben Jonson) * The Roaring Girl (Thomas Middleton & Thomas Dekker) * The Changeling (Thomas Middleton & William Rowley) * 'Tis Pity She's a Whore (John Ford). Each play is prefaced by an introductory headnote discussing the thematic focus of the play and its textual history, and is cross-referenced to other plays of the period that relate thematically and generically. An accompanying website contains a wide selection of contextual documents which supplement the anthology: www.routledge.com/textbooks/0415187346
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