The document provides an overview of theatre in Shakespeare's time, including details about some early English plays from the 1500s, Shakespeare's early life and education, a chronology of his plays, his competition with other playwrights like Christopher Marlowe, and types of Elizabethan performance spaces like inn yards, amphitheaters, and the Globe Theatre. It also includes sections on costumes, theatre companies, and Shakespeare's later life spent in Stratford-upon-Avon.

1. THEATRE IN SHAKESPEARE’S TIME

2. Tudor and Elizabethan Theatre
before Shakespeare
 Ralph Roister Doister by Nicholas Udall (1505-1566)
 Gammer Gurton’s Needle, by Mr. S written 1552-1553
 A Lamentable Tragedy Mixed Full of Pleasant Mirth, Containing the
Life of Cambises, King of Persia, from the beginning of his
Kingdom, Unto his Death, His One Good Deed of Execution, after that
Many Wicked Deeds and Tyrannous Murders Committed by and
Through Him, and last of all, His Odious Death by God’s Justice
Appointed, by Thomas Preston (1537-1598). Play produced in 1561
 The first English Tragedy – Gorboduc (Ferrex and Porrex), by Thomas
Sackville and Thomas Norton, produced in 1561
 The Coventry Cycle: Corpus Christi Pageants
 The University Wits

3. Shakespeare’s Early Life
 Born in April 1564, possibly on April 23rd
 Lived in Stratford-upon-Avon
 Went to school…
 Married Anne Hathaway
 Had 3 children
 Left for London

4. How many days would it take?

5. Chronology of Shakespeare’s Plays
 1590-91 Henry VI, Part II, Henry VI, Part III
 1591-92 Henry VI, Part I
 1592-93 Richard III, Comedy of Errors
 1593-94 Titus Andronicus, Taming of the Shrew
 1594-95 Two Gentlemen of Verona, Love's Labour's Lost, Romeo and Juliet
 1595-96 Richard II, A Midsummer Night's Dream
 1596-97 King John, The Merchant of Venice
 1597-98 Henry IV, Part I, Henry IV, Part II
 1598-99 Much Ado About Nothing, Henry V
 1599-1600 Julius Caesar, As You Like It, Twelfth Night
 1600-01 Hamlet, The Merry Wives of Windsor
 1601-02 Troilus and Cressida
 1602-03 All's Well That Ends Well
 1604-05 Measure for Measure, Othello
 1605-06 King Lear, Macbeth
 1606-07 Antony and Cleopatra
 1607-08 Coriolanus, Timon of Athens WARNING!
 1608-09 Pericles
 1609-10 Cymbeline
This timeline is
 1610-11 The Winter's Tale considered debatable!
 1611-12 The Tempest
 1612-13 Henry VIII, The Two Noble Kinsmen

6. The Competition

7. Playwrights
 Thomas Kyd
 Christopher Marlowe
 Ben Jonson
 Fletcher and Beaumont
 John Webster
 Philip Massinger
 Thomas Middleton

8. Christopher Marlowe
 Born 2 months before Shakespeare
 His father was a shoemaker
 Educated in Canterbury, then Cambridge
 Went to London in 1587…?
 Achieved fame before
Shakespeare
 Killed in Deptford in 1593
 Great command of
blank verse

9. Iambic Pentameter ala Kit M.
 You stars that reign'd at my nativity,
 Whose influence hath allotted death and hell,
 Now draw up Faustus like a foggy mist
 Into entrails of yon labouring clouds,
 That when they vomit forth into the air,
 My limbs may issue from their smoky
mouths,
 So that my soul may but ascend to Heaven.

10. Kit Marlowe, continued

11. Quotes from Marlowe
 Was this the face that launched a thousand
ships?
 Come live with me and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove…

12. Performance Spaces

13. 3 types of venues for Elizabethan plays:
 Inn-yards - the original venues of plays - many
converted to playhouses
 Open air amphitheaters - generally used during
summer months, then acting companies moved
indoors
 Playhouses – used during winter
The Rose
Blackfriars
The George Inn

14. Elizabethan & Jacobean
Theatres

15. The Globe

16. Seeing a show at the Globe

18. Costumes

19.  An actor could be fined several pounds for taking a
costume out of the tiring house
 Oftentimes, theatre producers spent more on costumes
than they did on a playwright’s payment
 Costumes and props could be rented
 Sometimes royal patrons
paid for special costumes

20. What’s so remarkable about this
costume?
(It was made for a man!)

21. Theatre Companies
 The Earl of Leicester's Men
 The Queen’s Men
 The Lord Chamberlain's Men
 The Admiral's Men
Richard Burbage

22. Shakespeare’s Later Life
William Shakespeare spent
his last days in Stratford-
upon-Avon.
He died April 23, 1616, aged
52.
GOOD FREND FOR IESVS SAKE
FOREBEARE,
TO DIGG THE DVST ENCLOASED HEARE.
BLESTE BE YE MAN YT SPARES THES
STONES,
AND CVRST BE HE YT MOVES MY BONES.

23. A Shakespearian Curiosity…
The 46th Psalm of the King James Bible
God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore will
not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be
carried into the midst of the sea; Though the waters thereof roar and be
troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof. Selah. There
is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of
the tabernacles of the most High. God is in the midst of her; she shall not be
moved: God shall help her, and that right early. The heathen raged, the
kingdoms were moved: he uttered his voice, the earth melted. The LORD of
hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah. Come, behold the works
of the LORD, what desolations he hath made in the earth. He maketh wars to
cease unto the end of the earth; he breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear in
sunder; he burneth the chariot in the fire. Be still, and know that I am God: I will
be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth. The LORD of
hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah.