Built in the surviving shell of the 1870 Memorial Theatre (destroyed by fire in 1929) with funds donated by benefactor Frederick Koch, the Swan Theatre opened in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1986.
The Swan is a unique, modern theatre space based on the design of playhouses in Elizabethan England; with a three-tier wooden structure, a thrust stage and the audience surrounding the performers.
Globe Theatre (1599)
The Globe Theatre was a roughly cylindrical 3-story timber building, each floor containing open galleries with seats. The galleries extended around most of the circle, the stage built out into the centre from the remainder of the
circle. Behind the stage were dressing rooms, storage, and other functional areas. Above the thatched roof rose a tower, from which flags were flown and
trumpets sounded to announce a production. In 1613 the thatched roof caught on fire, and the Globe burned to the ground.
Rebuilt in the same year, it was torn down in 1644; two years after the
Puritan government closed the theatres.
The Flag
The Flag was flown above the theatre’s to let spectators know that they was going to be a play that afternoon.
The ‘Tiring House’ is the three-story section of the playhouse that contained the dressing rooms, the prop room, the musician's gallery, and connecting passageways. The tiring-house was enclosed in curtains at all times so the less dramatic elements of play production would be hidden from the audience.
The ‘Heavens’ is a roof, which you could let a throne down from it.
A description and a sketch of the Swan made by Johann DeWitt of Utrecht.
Description of The Old Theatre
The old Theatre was a 20-sided structure, as near to a circle as Elizabethan carpentry could make it. It stood more than 30 feet high, with three levels of seating in its galleries. Audience access was either through two narrow passageways under the galleries into the standing room of the yard around the stage, or else up two external stair towers into the rear of the galleries. Five of the 20 bays of the galleries were cut off by the frons scenae or tiring-house wall, behind which the actors kept their store of props, costumes, and playbooks and prepared themselves for their performance. The stage was a five-foot-high platform protruding from the tiring house into the middle of the yard. Two posts upheld a cover or shadow over the stage, which protected the players and their expensive costumes from rain. The audience standing in the yard had no cover, though when it rained they could pay more and take shelter in the lowest gallery.
The legal restrictions on the performances are that they were banned performances on unlicensed work, religious and political dramas were forbid and they made local officials responsible for performances in the towns
Everyone went to the plays; People who were rich and people who were also poor went to the plays. A seat in a balcony cost about a penny more then what the groundlings paid.
The groundlings
The people who stood around the stage were called groundlings. They paid one penny (or approximately $1.66 today) to enter the theatre.
Patronage
Two types of patron: the ordinary paying public who came to the Globe, and a few very rich individuals, aristocrats or royalty. And the first were as important as the second.
Other plays written by Shakespeare
Status of Actors
Actors were allowed to suggest changes to scenes and dialogue and had much more freedom with their parts than actors today. Young/teenage male actors played the female roles because women weren’t allowed to act.
Costumes
Any part of the costume was likely to be decorated with braid, embroidery, pinking (pricking in patterns) slashing, or puffing, or it might be encrusted with pearls, jewels, or spangles or trimmed with lace or artificial flowers. Men's clothing, like that of women, was gorgeous with colour and ornamentation. The many parts of male attire contributed to the ornate and colourful effect of the ensemble. Men wore hats even indoors. Feathers and jewels were normal ornaments. A small flat cap like a beret with a narrow brim continued to be worn by craftsman and many citizens of London. Masculine hairstyles varied greatly. Sometimes the hair was cut closely at the sides, but it could be brushed up and held with gum, or it might be curled all over the head.
Performances took place during the day, using natural light from the open centre of the theatre. Since there could be no dramatic lighting and there was very little scenery or props, audiences relied on the actors' lines and stage directions to supply the time of day and year, the weather, location, and mood of the scenes.
The Chamberlain’s Men
A theatrical company with which, Shakespeare was intimately connected for most of his professional career as a dramatist. It was the most important company of players in Elizabethan and Jacobean England.
The Admiral’s Men
A theatrical company in Elizabethan and Jacobean England. About 1576-79 they were known as Lord Howard's Men, so called after their patron Charles Howard, 1st earl of Nottingham, 2nd Baron Howard of Effingham. In 1585, when Lord Howard became England's lord high admiral, the company changed its designation to the Admiral's Men. It was later known successively as Nottingham's Men, Prince Henry's Men, and the Elector Palatinate's (Palsgrave's) Men.
