FAQ Project Elizabethan Actors

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FAQ ProjectElizabethan Actors

• By Brittany Rock
• Period 1

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What were Elizabethan actors?

• Elizabethan actors were skilled and talented
  performers that used a lot of poetic dialogue to
  paint a picture of the scene that they wished
  their audience to envision. Before the building
  of permanent playhouses, plays were put on by
  traveling troupes of actors who would wander
  throughout the country in wagons that could be
  transformed into temporary stages. These acting
  companies performed anywhere they could find an
  audience, frequently setting up their stage in
  the courtyard of an inn or at times in the home
  of a nobleman at his demand. In a typical
  Elizabethan acting company, there were roughly
  ten shareholders, several paid actors, and
  apprentices. All the actors in the company were
  male because, due to the often rough and
  disorderly atmosphere of the theatre, women were
  not allowed to take part in the plays. the female
  characters were acted by young boys, who were the
  apprentices of the older actors. Each actor in a
  company was assigned a particular type of
  character to portray in the companys plays, such
  as a fool, a hero, a clown, etc. In addition, the
  actors often played more than one character
  within the same play. Besides being able to act,
  Elizabethan actors also had to be able to sing,
  clown, fence, perform acrobatic feats, and dance.

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What were some of the companies of the actors?

• In 1578 six companies were granted permission
  by special order of the queen to perform plays.
  They were the Children of the Chapel Royal,
  Children of Saint Paul's, the Servants of the
  Lord Chamberlain, Servants of Lords Warwick,
  Leicester, and Essex. Theatrical companies were
  slowly transformed from unbalanced associations
  of men dependent on the favor of a lord, to
  stable business organizations.

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Who were some of the Elizabethan actors?

• Actors became famous in their own right. Some
  of the leading actors during this Era included
  Edward Alleyn (of the Admirals Men) is
  considered one of the greatest actors of
  Shakespeare's time, Richard Burbage (of the
  Chamberlains Men) who He also prospered as a
  major shareholder in the Globe and Blackfliers
  theatres, William Kemp (Earl of Leicesters) who
  was an English actor and dancer, John Lowen
  (Kings Men) who was an English actor and a
  colleague of William Shakespear, and the last
  actor you all should know the famous William
  Shakespeare.

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How did the Elizabethan actors talk?

• Without the elaborate stage setting the
  audience was forced to listen more closely to the
  actors dialogue to understand the action and
  meaning of the play. The actors used a lot of
  poetic dialogue to help with depicting the story
  line and paint a picture for the audience. Actors
  also made use of asides, in which the character
  thinks aloud without the notice of the other
  characters on stage.

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What did the actors wear?

• The actors on stage wore costumes that were
  rich,
• showy, and expensive. The Elizabethan actors had
• access to very good castoff clothes to use as
  their
• costumes in the plays that they were performing
• in. The primary function of Elizabethan costume
• was to identify a characters occupation and
• social rank. The quality and price of the
• garments was an indicator of rank, at least
• in theory many Elizabethans, complained
• that people often dressed above their
• station.

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Bibliography

• Mabillard, Amanda. "Shakespeare of Stratford."
  Shakespeare Online. 2000. (11/30/04)
• http//www.shakespeare-online.com
• http//archive.1september.ru/eng/1999/eng16-1.htm
  (12/1/04)
• G. Smith 2000 Shakespeare The Man and His Times
  (12/1/04) http//home.pacific.net.au/greg.hub/sh
  akespeare.html
• Ross, Maggi. 26 March 2000 (11/30/04)
• http//renaissance.dm.net/compendium/57.html
• LLC 2000-2004 (12/1/04)http//www.allshakespeare
  .com/1400

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