TH227

SR: acting companies

consisted of 16-20 and included women. regulated by local gov. all plays and troupes had to be licensed. some troupes were sharing companies and others were organized by a manager, who contracted performers for a specific period of time.

SR: costumes

contemporary clothes were worn. at times, historical or mythical figures would be dressed more elaborately

ER: costumes

costuming followed the conventions and traditions of medieval English theatre. most costuming was in contemporary english fashion. certain traditional costumes were worn to indicate antiquity, folk heroes, supernatural creatures, and racial groups

17thCE: Inigo Jones

court architect and designer for both James1 and charles1. these included temporary proscenium arches, raised stages,systems for changing scenery, painted-perspective stage sets, and flying machinery. built the banqueting house at whitehall as a home for the court masques. delighted his audiences with new machinery such as a revolving platforms and fanciful costumes. suspension of masques after 1640

IR: The nature of criticism: descriptive and prescriptive critism

descriptive: analyzes what has gone before. attempt to tell us what type of drama was written, how it was put together, what it means, and so forth. prescriptive: argues for a certain point of view, sets down rules, and prescribes formulas. ex(neoclassicist)

ER: scenery

did not use painted perspective scenery and stage space did not represent a specific locale. spoken decor was used: characters would describe settings. the departure of all onstage char and the entrance of a new group would also signal a scene change. actors would sometimes bring out minimal properties to suggest a locale. the facade of the tiring house provided a constant scenic bg.

ER: stage requirements

drama requires a discovery space on the first level a upper playing area that is a sort of second story platform at the back of the stage

ER: Organization of Acting Companies

each had no more than about 25 members were organized on sharing plan. 3 categories of personnel: shareholders, hired men or hirelings, and apprentices. Shareholders, the elite members of the company, bought a percentage ownership of the troupe and received a corresponding percentage of it profits as payment for their services. Hirelings were actors contracted for a specific period of time, played minor roles. apprentices, young performers training for the profession were assigned to shareholders. sometimes a writer was kept under contract. a new play was usually performed once a week for a few weeks and then performed several times later in the season if popular.

ER: Shakespeare's skill and diversity

episodic form, characters are so carefully detailed that they ofter seem like living people. diversity in plays. his episodic structure derives from medieval drama rather than from the neoclassical unites.

SR: teatro comedia

featured saints, rulers, nobles, historical figures, legendary heroes, and mythological figures.

ER: Christopher Marlowe

first to emerge in er. perfected the chronicle play, a history play that emphasizes important public issues. influenced shakespeare

ER: iambic pentameter

five beats to a line, with two syllables to each beat and the accent on the second beat.

IR: angled wings

flats hinged in a fixed pos and painted in perspective and placed one behind another on both sides of the stage. each wing would give the appearance of a house and would have some 3d ornamentation. tops of painted housed were constructed so that they slanted downward. set was enclosed in the back by either a painted backdrop or two painted shutters that met in the middle. back area of stage, was to be raked that is slightly inclined

IR: special effects and lighting

flying machines called glories; trapdoors; and primitive sound effects to create thunder and wind. candles and oil lamps for lighting

ER: Public/Outdoor theatres

forerunners were bearbaiting rings or inns adapted for performances. halls owned by royalty or the nobility adapted for performances, spaces at colleges and schools used for their presentations, and the outdoor platform stages of medieval theatre, as well as other public spaces such a bullbaiting and bearbaiting arenas. built outside the city limits of London, to the north or south of the city across the Thames River because the London city fathers opposed theatre. However, the queen and the nobility not only enjoyed theatre but also gave financial support in various ways.

FR: French Academy

french intellectuals had organized a literary group, he urged them to form an academy along the lines of Italian academies. French Academy limited to forty writers and other intellectuals

SR: Secular Dramas: Comedias

full-length plays of the spanish golden age were originally known as comedia nuevas. comedias usually dealt with themes of love and honor, and the leading characters were often minor noblemen. episodic in form and did not adhere to the neoclassical rules. comedias written in 3acts instead of 5. subjects of play are conflicts of love and honor, daring adventures, melodramatic confrontations, and rescues. also there is a mixture of the serious and the comic

English Restoration: Serious Drama

heroic tragedy dealt with extraordinary characters who undertook extraordinary deeds. dealt with themes of love and honor. Restoration tragedy, adherence to the neoclassical rules. Shakespeare plays reworked into neoclassical mold.

IR: Humanism

humanists focused on people rather than gods;

ER: Elizabethan Acting Companies

in 1574 all plays and companies had to be licensed by the master of revels, a royal official. all troupes had to be sponsored by a nobleman.also need a patron for financial backing, legal protection, and other types of support. in return, the companies received small financial subsidies and occasional allowances for costumes.

ER: private theatres

indoor spaces, lit by candles and high windows. open to general populace but more expensive first private theatre, Blackfriars. private theatre sat only about 600 to 700. the pit of a private theatre faced the stage in only one direction and had backless benches.platform stage extended to the side walls. galleries and boxes faced the stage on three sides. the benches and boxes closest to the stage were most expensive. those on the upper back wall farther away from the stage were cheapest.

ER: Early Dramas

interludes: brief dramatic ent written and staged by professionals were presented at court and in the homes of nobility. English school drama written at the uni and presented at schools and colleges rather than public

IR: Sebastian Serlio

introduce perspective with its sense of visual realism. three basic settings for drama: 1)tragic (stately houses) 2) comic (common street) 3)pastoral(showing trees, hills,etc)

IR: commedia dell'arte

italian play of professional artists. associated with comedy. consisted of improvised presentations

IR: pastoral

italians imitated greek satyr plays, romance: characters are usually shepherds and mythological creatures, serious action, but happy ending

ER: Richard Burbage

leading actor in the lord chamberlain's men. lead in many shakespeare's play

SR: cape and sword comedia

main char wears a cape and sword. suggests the daredevil, romantic quality of these plays.

IR: zibaldoni

manuscripts put together by commedia actors, which contained jokes, comic business, etc

ER: drama structure

many char and many scenes ranging through time and shifting from place to place.often had parallel plots or subplots. violence onstage and supernatural. soliloquy were popular. often mixed higher and lower char and included comic scenes in serious plays

17thCE: Jacobean and Caroline

many of the elements that had characterized elizabethan drama continued. heroism gave way to decadence and cynicism, and tragedy gave way to melodrama.

SR: BG of spanish golden age

moorish influences appear later in architecture and the arts. medieval Spain did produce examples of vernacular religious plays.

ER: The Lord Chamberlain's Men

most famous for both its actors and its dramatist. group included Richard and Cuthbert Burbage, the clown Will Kempe, and the actor-playwright William Shakespeare. toured provinces until theatres reopened

IR: The form of drama: neoclassical structure

neoclassicists' strict rules of structure: verisimilitude and the unities of time, place, and action.

ER: staging

neutral platform stage had evolved to a point where it was ideal for plays in which scenes moved freely from one place to another and from one time to another.

ER: Acting Practices

no actresses. plays required huge casts, doubling or tripling roles not uncommon. an acting company would rarely produce the same play on two consecutive days, and the company had to be able to revive any play on a very short notice. primary concern was the effective delivery of lines. actors were provided with sides, which contained their own lines and cues rather than full script. plots, outlines would be posted backstage rehearsals were run by playwrights and rehearsal time was minimal about 3weeks for a new play.

IR: The nature of drama: should theatre be didactic?

no because art provides a unique mirror in which we see ourselves, not art 's job to teach yes, because ent joined with instruction was the best kind of drama

FR: Neoclassical Drama

no proscenium-arch theatres with an emphasis on scenic effects, did not observe the neoclassical unities. neoclassical ideals dictated both dramaturgy.

SR: the status of actresses

numerous laws passed in an attempt to restrict the employment of women in theatre. in 1587, women were legally permitter to work as performers. ban in 1596 but ineffective, 1599, a new law passes, only actresses who were the wives or daughters of company members and banned cross-dressing.

Lope Felix De Vega Carpio

one of the most prolific dramatists of all time. plays has many scenes and large casts of characters, and they range widely over both time and space. established the popularity of the three-act verse comedia, he wrote plays in every genre

IR: audience seating

opera houses designed w/ pit, boxes and galleries. the pit, in which audience members stood, was an open area on the house floor extending to the side and back walls. built into the walls were tiers of seating. lower tiers most expensive and were divided into separate private boxes.upper tiers, called galleries had open bench seating.the pit- a raucous area where the spectators ate, talked, and moved around. galleries were the least expensive

IR: Teatro Olimpico

originally designed: Andrea Palladio Vincenzo Scamozzi completed building in 1584. miniature indoor roman theatre, 3000 spectators, consisted of elliptical benches connected to the scaena, ornate facade designed to look like a street, five openings in the facade-three in the back wall and one on each side, behind each opening was an alleyway with 3d buildings.

ER: Public/Outdoor theatres design

platform stage about 4 feet high that thrust into the audience, which surrounded it on three sides. most theatres the stage was wide and never less than 26ft. capacity ranges from 1500 to 3000 shape of buildings are said to have been circular and others polygonal.

Pedro Calderon De La Barca

play revolved around love and honor and some examine violent family situations. wrote life is a dream

IR: commedia companies

profit sharing plan: members shared in it profits as well as its expenses and losses. production overseen by troupe leader. flexible with spaces they performed popular: I Gelosi with Francesco and Isabella Anderini

ER: two types of theatres

pubic/outdoor and private/indoor larger theaters such as theGlobe and the Fortune were open to the sky in their central area, and they accommodated more people and charged less for admission than the smaller indoor or "hall theaters"

English Restoration: theatre during the commonwealth

puritans closed the theatres in 1642 and from then util 1660 theatrical activity was severely curtailed. elizabethan playhouses were dismantled and actors persecuted. some ent were organized secretly. Davenant was able to circumvent the ordinances against theatre by describing his presentations as musical entertainments

IR: Teatro Farnese

raised horseshoe seating allowing 3500 spectators. semicircular orchestra in front of the stage. orchestra used for additional seating or flooded for aquatic scenes.

ER: boys acting companies

received permission from queen to give public plays, used and indoor hall in Blackfriars, and many major playwrights provided them with dramas

SR: Secular theatre in spain

religious and secular theatre flourished side by side

IR: sacra rappresentazioni

religious dramas in medieval style, based on biblical stories and the lives of saints

SR: Religious Dramas: Auto Sacramentales

religious dramas in spain were originally produced inside churches and cathedrals as part of the services. spanish religious plays written for corpus christi, a festival held in late May or early june which celebrates the power of sacraments.plays performed known as autos sacramentales. they combined elements of medieval morality and mystery plays and could be based on secular as well as religious sources, they included supernatural, human, and allegorical characters.

SR: Producing the Autos Sacramentales

religious plays were stages under the auspices of trade guilds then the city council took over this responsibility. single professional companies would present three autos at each festival by the 1600s the troupe employed to perform the autos would be required to give one preview for the king and another for the city council.

IR: lazzi

repeated bits of physical comic business that commedia characters used

English Restoration: beginning

restriction on the number of theatres permitted to operate, new theatres, a new makeup of audiences, and a new atmosphere that permeated attendance at theatres. french and italian theatrical influences. appearance of actresses onstage.

ER: The Lord Admiral's men

rival or lord chamberlain men under the management of philip henslowe and Edward Alleyn

ER: Elizabethan Drama influences

roman influences: Seneca's revenge-obsessed characters, his presentation of violence onstage, and his use of super-natural beings. Plautus's and terence's comic plots and techniques

IR: perspective in scene design

scenes onstage painted on flat surfaces could achieve an illusion of depth

ER: audience seating in public theatres

seating in pit,boxes, and galleries. three tiers of seating around the sides of theatre. bottom tier divided into boxes known as lords rooms. height of 1st tier:12ft, 2nd tier:11ft, and 3rd tier: 9ft. other tiers or galleries were undivided and had bench seating. on the ground floor, in front of and on all sides of the stage, was a standing area known as the yard, the lower class spectators who stood there were known as groundlings. women attended but avoided being in the yard

IR: flat wings

series of individuals wings on each side of the stage, parallel to the audience, placed in a progression from the front to the back of the stage and enclosed at the very back by two shutters that met in the middle. the final element was an overhead border- a strip across the top of the stage.

ER: Marlowe and the Mighty Line

set standard for dramatic structure and contributed a galley of interesting char. iambic pentameter developed strength, subtlety, and suppleness, as well as great lyric beauty. another theme, good and bad forces vie for the soul of the main char

IR: Intermezzi

short pieces depicting mythological tales, presented between the acts of full length plays, usually comedies

FR: Jean Racine

showed an extraordinary ability to create dramatic tension through concentration and characterization. strict in neoclassical form

ER: the stage in public theatres

stage was a raised platform surrounded on three sides by the audience. spectators were never very far away from the stage, but there is a great deal of debate over how far into the yard the platform stage extended.

IR: Opera

studied as a form of music. basic elements are the purely musical sections(aria, solo song accompanied by orchestra, duets, trios...) and the recitative(sung dialogue).

IR: periaktoi

three sided device used by Greeks when one face of periaktoi is shown to the audience, the other two are invisible. Rotating the device allowed 3 diff scenes to be shown.

IR: other neoclassic rules

tragedy dealt with royalty, comedy dealt with common people. tragedy must be resolve calamitously, comedy must be resolved happily. two genres must never be mixed, and the function of all drama was to teach a moral lesson. onstage violence was forbidden. banished chorus and the deus ex machina

17thCE: Beaumont and Fletcher

two playwrights collaborated with each other to create plays with the qualities of a tragedy but with a happy ending. wrote plays in an ornate, superficial, and somewhat artificial style

IR: the unities

unity of time: required that all dramatic action should not exceed 24 hours unity of place: restricted the action of a play to one locale. unity of action: one central story and relatively small group of characters. purpose so that the play would stay truthful to audiences

FR: Alexandre Hardy

used neoclassical devices such as messengers and the five-act structure but paid little or no attention to the unities of time, place, and action; he used supernatural characters, and he showed all the action even the most violent

SR: carros

wagons that religious plays were mounted on. before 1647 two carros were used for each play to serve as a place for storing any scenic elements, changing costumes, and making entrances and exits. a third wagon was joined to these two carros to serve as a platform stage. after 1647 there was a fixed platform at each playing space, and four carros were used. so two drawn up at the rear of the platform stage and one at each side.

IR: renewal of interest in classical dramatic traditions was inspired by several developments

1) revival of the teaching of Greek 2)a transfer in 1453 of surviving Greek and Roman manuscripts to Italy 3)the publication of all the extant plays attributed to Aeschylus, Sophocles... 4) printing press

IR: The Theatre at Sabbioneta

250 seat. had only on bg vista, which was a perspective scenic view painted on the sides and back of the stage area. set in rect building, has small colonnade around the horseshoe-shaped auditorium, which has a flat floor and no fixed seating.

IR: pole-and-chariot

Giacomo Torelli. poles were attached to scene flats; these poles went below the stage floor, where they were connected to wheels that ran in tracks. flats could be moved offstage smoothly with a series of connected ropes and pulleys and entire set flat wings could be removed simultaneously by turning a single winch and one set could almost dissolve into another.

IR: slapstick

a wooden sword used in comic fight scenes, when a performer was thwacked with it, the effect was greatly exaggerated by the sound of the wood.

SR: Lope De Rueda

actor, manger, and playwright who was the most pop of the early spanish theatre. wrote five full-length secular plays called comedias and about a dozen short comic pieces, called pasos; performed in palace halls, city squares, or courtyards. Entremeses (interludes): short sketches, pasos (short, humorous sketches)

ER: female char in theatre

actresses were little better than whores. cross-dressing dramtized negative ideas about women

17thCE: Ben Johnson

adept at comedy. first writers in england to champion the neoclassical principles. each principal character had an excess of one trait or humour. compose court masques

IR: verisimiltude

all drama was to be true life. no supernatural elements

IR: decorum

all dramatic characters should behave in ways based on their age, profession, sex, rank, and the like.

IR: commedia costumes

all wore traditional costumes and the same outfit with exaggerated details to reflect comic personality. mask were worn except for young lovers

IR: proscenium arch stage

also known as the picture frame, fourth wall, or conventional stage. audience facing in one direction views the action through the arch, which frames the stage pic. hides from the audience the stage mechanisms for scene changes and special effects

17thCE: court entertainment, the masque

an elaborate entertainment presented at court. flourished in the early 17th ce favored by royalty and nobility. generally created to honor the king or a member of the royal fam or the nobility. there was an emphasis on music and dance and even more on spectacle: elaborate, painted backdrops and side pieces, as well as moving equipment such as clouds that rose or fell. incorporated mythological and allegorical figures. in the end the monarch proved to be the hero. masques were colorful, ornate, and immensely expensive. it introduced italianate scenic practices to the london stage.

SR: scenery

basic scenic element was a two or three story stage house constructed behind the platform stage. a curtain, props, and flats might be used in conjunction with the facade of the stage house. three openings for entrances, exits, and reveals, and one or two upper playing houses. spoken decor was also used

ER: the tiring house

behind the raised platform was a 3story building that served as a place for changing costumes as well as storing properties and set pieces. its facade was the basic scenic element in the elizabethan public theaters. exits into the tiring house and entrances from it indicated scene changes. debate: built into the back wall of the playhouse or set up as a separate unit on the stage, extending out from the rear wall. back wall was made up of three sides of the polygonal playhouse and served as the facade of the tiring house. third level is called the musicians gallery probably housed about 6 musicians. roof extending out from the tiring house protected the stage and was supported by pillars or suspended from the back. interior decorated

17thCE: John Webster

caroline period: plays became more sensational, more violent, and more contrived than the great Elizabethan dramas.

ER: university wits

circle of young writers who had studied at Oxford or Cambridge

ER: William Shakespeare

He took established elements—Senecan devices; episodic plot structure; the platform stage; powerful dramatic verse. associated with London's leading troupe, first called the Lord Chamerlain's men and after 1603 known as the King's Men. as an actor he was said to play small but important roles. also expected to help stage them.

English Restoration: Restoration Drama

Italian influence was reinforced by englands contact with neoclassical france.

IR: neoclassicists

Julius Caesar Scaliger: purpose of dram is to teach move and delight. Lodovico Castelvetro, and Antonio Minturno

IR: popular stock characters

Pantalone: lecherous, misery, old venetian Dottore: a foolish pendant who was always involved in his neighbors affairs capitano: cowardly, braggart soldier zanni: sly/foolish servants

IR: perspective

a convention for representing depth on a flat surface

FR: early dramas

a literary group called the pleiade was formed to further writing and culture; French plays based on neoclassical models. The plays were not particularly original, and aimed almost exclusively at an upper-class, scholarly audience.

SR: sor juana ines de la cruz

a nun who wrote the sacramental play the dive narcissus

SR: stage

a platform raised above the patio. trapdoors on the stage. at each side of the platform was a railed area that was used for additional bench seating unless a production required the entire stage. the first proscenium arch theatre was introduced only at court.

SR: the corrales

where nonreligious plays were stage. were open air spaces with galleries and boxed protected by a roof. stage was a platform erected opposite the entrance to the courtyard. the yard floor was primarily an area for standing. At the front of the patio, near the stage, a row of stool. later, a small number of benches called taburetes were set up, separated from the rest of the yard by a railing. In the back wall opposite the stage, above the main entranceway in the yard, was a gallery known as the cazuela, or "stew pot." Tis was an area where women could sit; above that was a row of boxes for gov officials, and above these boxes was a larger gallery for the clergy. at the back of the patio, on one side of the main entrance, was a refreshments stand called alojero. along the side walls of the yard were gradas- raked, elevated benches. above that were rejas- windows, protected by grills. on the next level were boxes extended out from the building around the courtyard. a fourth floor contained desvanes("attics"), which were cramped boxes with low ceilings. corral held about 2000(100 men, 350 women) and the rest for gov officials and clergy

IR: groove system

wings and shutters were placed in grooves in and above the stage floor; the grooves allowed these elements to slide offstage easily and quickly so that a new series of wings and shutter in place behind the original set would be immediately revealed to the audience.

SR: female playwrights

women wrote texts which subverted many of the traditions of the comedias and called into question the traditional views of gender roles, love and honor, and political authority.

English Restoration: Thomas Killigrew

written a number of tragicomedies.formed the king's company and made master of the revels. reunited with Davenant's company to prevent killigrews troupe from going bankrupt.

English Restoration: William Davenant

wrote plays and collaborated with inigo jones on several court masques. Davenant's The Siege of Rhodes is considered the first English opera. first production in which actresses appeared on the english stage and the first public performance in which changeable scenery was used.the production also had a proscenium arch and a wing-shutter setting.

FR: Pierre Corneille

wrote the cid, which violated the neoclassical rules. serious play with a happy ending. too much action into 24 hours, fails decorum. wrote plays with heroic characters in suspenseful and surprising situations that force them to act.