Shakespeare

In 1576 James Burbage ‘Farther of Richard’ built “The Theatre” in Shoreditch, London on a piece of land he leased. This was the first theatre in London. The lord chamberlain’s men were the company in residence of “The Theatre” from 1594 to 1596. Writers presented their ideas for plots with actors and managers for a show they want to create, if they presented a good idea people would invest in the show to be made. Play writers created performances as well as parts in the play with certain actors in mind of when they were creating there plays. Each actor got his own role own role for the show and only were given their lines to learn. Rehearsals were used only to plan staging and costumes as actors were expected to know all there lines when they turn up for rehearsals. Theatre closed 1593 due to the plague.

1597 Shakespeare’s company moved in to the “Curtain Theatre” due to falling to negotiate a new deal with the leas to the land “The Theatre” was built on. 1599 The Globe Theatre opened on the bankside, on the opposite side of the river to “The Theatre”. In 1603 the Plague appeared in London again which eventually closed the Theatre. Outside Theatre where open from April to October 1613. The Globe Theatre was burnt down due to a fire in the Theatre. 1614 the Globe Theatre was rebuilt on its original foundation, 2 years before the death of Shakespeare. There were also Boy Theatre Company which was young boys from prestige families who performed only to the well-educated and the rich. These performances were indoors with music and candle light. Queen Elizabeth died in 1603 and King James took the throne which made the Jacobean theatre until 1625. King James only aloud dark performances in theatre which were to do with death. There were two types of performances:

Revenge Plays: Disturbing and violent, main character=Revenger

Tragicomedies: dark and grotesque humour.                      

Theatre Decline:

1642 The English civil war broke out between Parliamentarians and Royalist, Parliamentarians were against theatre and tore the Globe Theatre down and ordered all other theatres were torn down, all actors would be arrested and people would be fined for watching plays. 12 years passed before any form of entertainment was shown again.

Our performance:

We were given a scene from “a mid summer nights dream” where puck and a fairy were fighting over who was better, Oberon or Titania. Oberon and Titania then enter and argue with each other, then it ends with us hearing Oberon’s plan to put a love potion on Titania. We all played around with certain roles because we struggled with the pronunciation of some of Shakespeare’s language. We also decided that we would split the Fairy into multiple roles and divided there lines between us. We casted Dan S as “Puck”, Meg, Dom and Ashley as “Fairy”, Kyle as “Oberon” and Freya as “Titania”. We  then played around with our staging and had tables and chairs placed all over the stage which our characters interacted with. We made Puck to be a very energetic person who is running all over the stage on and off of the chairs and tables. For the fairies we spread them out on the left side of the stage at different heights and had them change there heights each time they spoke. For the performances as well we had Puck and the Fairies stay on a certain side of the stage to show two sides of the conflict. Oberon and Puck were on the stage right while Titania and the fairies were on the left of the stage.