Shakespeares Audience

1
Shakespeares Audience

• Loran Sullivan
• Dr. Linda Tredennick
• English 330
• February 15, 2006

2
Without the audience there is no play, for the
stage cannot function unless the audience is
present
3
Population

• Rose from 3 to 4 million during the reign of
  Elizabeth I
• due to a rise in fertility
• falling death rate
• Meaning the country's resources had to be shared
  by a greater number of people causing more poor
• Hit by a number of poor harvests around 1590s,
• More pressure on a limited supply of food
• The resulting rise in food prices led, in some
  cases, to starvation amongst those who could not
  afford to pay.

4
Society

• Two kinds of nobility new and old
• Most old noble families were Catholic,
• Most new noble families were Protestant
• Real growth in society was in the merchant class
• Due to rise of modern commerce with cloth and
  weaving leading the way

5
Location of theaters

• Southwark
• Outside Jurisdiction
• Bad district
• bear-baiting, cock fighting, and other less than
  respectable activities

6
The Globe
7
Seating

• Commoners were in the courtyard
• penny
• roughly 10 of a workers daily wage),
• gentry and nobility which were seated in the
  galleries or the balconies.
• 2 penny
• 3 penny for cushion
• Sits on stage
• Interfered with movement
• They would talk to actors
• Got in the way

8
The Audience

• Elizabethans used to listening to verse not
  reading it
• Representative of London
• aristocrats, the university man, the wits, the
  men of fashion, citizens with their wives,
  daughters and apprentices, visitors to town
• 2,500-3500 people weekly attended the theater
  between
• Expressed their likes and dislikes
• At times stopped plays and substituted them for
  others
• Food, drink, and other entertainment before and
  around the plays

9
Women

• The social position - low
• Submissive baby machine
• Expected males heirs
• Pregnant once every 12 months
• Were taught they were inferior to men and the
  bible supported that
• Were only taught domestic skills
• If noble learned needlework and how to manage a
  house

10
Works Sited

• AbsoluteShakespeare.com. Shakespeare's Globe
  Theatre. 2000-2005 8 February 2006
  lthttp//absoluteshakespeare.com/trivia/globe/globe
  .htmgt.
• Bradford, Gamaliel. Elizabethan Woman. Ed. Harold
  Ogden White. Cambridge Houghton Mifflin Company,
  1936.
• Bennett, H. S. Shakespeares Audience. London
  University Press, Oxford, 1944.
• Briscoe, Alexandra. Poverty in Elizabethan
  England. 2001. 8 Feb, 2006 lthttp//www.bbc.co.uk/h
  istory/state/monarchs_leaders/poverty_01.shtmlgt.
• Cook, Ann Jennalie. Privileged Playgoers of
  Shakespeares London 1579-1642. Princeton
  Princeton University Press, 1981.
• Elizabethan womens rights. n.d. 8 February 2006
  lthttp//www.seatofmars.com/womensrights.htmgt.
• Evans, James Roose. London Theater from the Globe
  to the National. Oxford Phiadon Press Limited,
  1977.
• Harbage, Alfred. Shakespeares Audience. New
  York Columbia University Press, 1941.
• Hyland, Peter. An Introduction to Shakespeare
  The Dramatist in his Context. New York St.
  Martins Press, 1996.
• Purdom, C.B. Producing Shakespeare. London Sir
  Isaac Pitman Sons, Ltd., 1950.