Theater: The Globe Theatre

During the first years of Elizabeth’s reign, the English playing companies used inns, inn yards, college halls and private houses for their performances. Then in 1597, a most glorious theatre was built, holding several thousand people that would attend the plays. Beyond its magnificent setting and size, the Globe Theatre introduced several acting techniques, and productions that changed the whole game of English Playing. The acting, controversy, and unique productions all contributed to why the Globe Theatre is one of the most revered and influential theatres of its time. The Globe Theatre was different from every other playhouse of the Elizabethan era because of the design and memorable productions. As the trumpet sounds, at around 3 o’clock,

The actors that chose to work at the Globe Theatre had to be able to perform “eleven performances of ten different plays.” This was required to continually attract new audiences and compete with their opponents. With so much to learn, actors developed the method of "cue acting" which, similar to the idea of "cue cards" during a presentation, a production assistant would whisper the lines to the actors just as he would repeat them verbatim. Since actors had no time to rehearse, this method was termed "cue scripting" in which the actor was not even told the excursus of the play and only given his specific lines. For all of this work, actor were paid 1-3 shillings per day according to how prominent of an actor they were ("Globe Theatre Actors").They developed new acting techniques that allowed them to perform daily plays, which contributed to the success of the Globe Theatre. While at its height, the Globe and it’s actors helped shaped culture. Actors mirrored what society itself wanted, and in the Puritan era this raw emotion and passion was to be suppressed. Early Elizabethan actors were considered unrefined and untrustworthy. Actors were products of the streets. Often on the wrong side of the law and arrested for “vagrancy”, they perfected their craft in the open town marketplaces where crowds gathered. Successful actors drew attention and provoked emotions both good and

The Church was opposed to theatres because there was a rise in crime, including gambling and even "bear baiting", a horrible act of animal cruelty where a bear would be chained to a pole and dogs would attack and fight it. They also did not want the spread of a plague because of the large amount of people attending. In 1644, the puritans, who wanted to reform the Church of England, extirpated the Globe Theatre, and placed draconian laws on stage plays and theatres. Then in 1648 it was ordered "all playhouses to be pulled down ... [and] all players to be seized and whipped, and anyone attending a play to be fined five shillings" (“The Old Globe”). The Church closed it down because it got rowdy, however it eventually reopened. The fact it reopened tells us that without it, Elizabethan times were missing something, the Globe Theatre. If they did not care or if it was not a staple part of life, they would not bother to re-open it. Shakespeare and the Globe Theatre were thought to be part of a conspiracy to create public sympathy for the uprising called the Essex rebellion. Sir Gilly Metric commissioned the performance of Richard II, a play about the overthrowing of a tyrant. The plot to kill Queen Elizabeth failed and Shakespeare was questioned for his part (“Shakespeare's Globe Theatre”). Like all centerpieces of society, the Globe theatre reflected the political and religious