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Romeo and Juliet

FACTS ABOUT ELIZABETHAN THEATRE!

▪ There were no Elizabethan Theatres until 1576 - plays were performed in the courtyards of inns - they were referred to as 'inn-yards'

▪ Elizabethan theatres were also used for bear baiting, gambling and for “immoral purposes”

▪ Elizabethan theatres attracted huge crowds - up to 3000 people

▪ Many Londoners were strict Protestants - Puritans in fact, who abhorred the theatres and many of the people they attracted

▪ The people of the time believed in witches. In Europe, from 1480 to 1700, there were an estimated 40,000 to 100,000 executions of supposed witches. In England there were “only” 270 witch trials (during Elizabeth’s reign) of 247 which were women and only 23 were men

▪ During the height of the summer the groundlings were also referred to as ' stinkards ' for obvious reasons – people had only just recently begun to imitate Queen Elizabeth’s “frequent” bathing routine: once per month!

▪ In Shakespeare’s time copyright did not exist. Rival theater companies would send their members to attend plays to produce unauthorised copies of plays - notes were made and copied as quickly as possible.

▪ In just two weeks Elizabethan theaters could often present “eleven performances of ten different plays”.

▪ Bubonic plague attacked England >12 times in 1500s. In 1563, the plague took almost 80,000 lives in London alone, between one quarter and one third of the population at that time.

▪ It is widely assumed that Shakespeare himself introduced more words into English literature than all the other writers of his time combined, over 1,700 by some estimates, though in the past critics have credited him with introducing over 8000 words

▪ There were no actresses. Female characters had to be played by young boys. The acting profession was not a credible one and it was unthinkable that any woman would appear in a play.

▪ Many of the boy actors died of poisoning due to the vast quantities of lead in their make-up

Shakespeare Insult Kit

Combine one word from each of the three columns below, prefaced with "Thou":

Column 1 Column 2 Column 3

artless base-court apple-john

bawdy bat-fowling baggage

beslubbering beef-witted barnacle

bootless beetle-headed bladder

churlish boil-brained boar-pig

cockered clapper-clawed bugbear

clouted clay-brained bum-bailey

craven common-kissing canker-blossom

currish crook-pated clack-dish

dankish dismal-dreaming clotpole

dissembling dizzy-eyed coxcomb

droning doghearted codpiece

errant dread-bolted flap-dragon

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