Theatre Map of early modern London. Blackfriars Theatre is to the south-west of St Paul's Cathedral, which is left of centre
Blackfriars Theatre was the name given to two separate theatres located in the former BlackfriarsDominicanpriory in the City of London during the Renaissance. The first theatre began as a venue for the Children of the Chapel Royal, child actors associated with the Queen's chapel choirs, and who from 1576 to 1584 staged plays in the vast hall of the former monastery.[1] The second theatre dates from the purchase of the upper part of the priory and another building by James Burbage in 1596, which included the Parliament Chamber on the upper floor that was converted into the playhouse.[2] The Children of the Chapel played in the theatre beginning in the autumn of 1600 until the King's Men took over in 1608.[3] They successfully used it as their winter playhouse until all the theatres were closed in 1642 when the English Civil War began.[4] In 1666, the entire area was destroyed in the Great Fire of London.
Blackfriars Theatre was built on the grounds of the former Dominicanmonastery. The monastery was located between the Thames and Ludgate Hill within London proper.[5] The black robes worn by members of this order lent the neighbourhood, and theatres, their name. In the pre-Reformation Tudor years, the site was used not only for religious but also for political functions, such as the annulment trial of Catherine of Aragon and Henry VIII which, some eight decades later, would be reenacted in the same room by Shakespeare's company.[6] After Henry's expropriation of monastic property, the monastery became the property of the crown; control of the property was granted to Sir Thomas Cawarden, Master of the Revels. Cawarden used part of the monastery as Revels offices; other parts he sold or leased to the neighbourhood's wealthy residents, including Lord Cobham and John Cheke. After Cawarden's death in 1559, the property was sold by Lady Cawarden to Sir William More. In 1576, Richard Farrant, then Master of Windsor Chapel leased part of the former buttery from More in order to stage plays. As often in the theatrical practice of the time, this commercial enterprise was justified by the convenient fiction of royal necessity; Farrant claimed to need the space for his child choristers to practice plays for the Queen, but he also staged plays for paying audiences. The theatre was small, perhaps 46 feet (14m) long and 25 feet (7.6m) wide, and admission, compared to public theatres, expensive (six pence in the gallery, rising in stages to three shillings for a seat in a box close to the stage); both these factors limited attendance at the theatre to a fairly select group of well-to-do gentry and nobles.[7]
For his playing company, Farrant combined his Windsor children with the Children of the Chapel Royal, then directed by William Hunnis. On Farrant's death in 1580, Hunnis took on John Newman as a partner and they subleased the property from Farrant's widow, putting up a £100 bond on the promise to promptly pay the rent and to make needed repairs. But the venture did not go well financially, which put Farrant's widow in jeopardy of defaulting on the rent to More. In November 1583, Farrant brought suit against Hunnis and Newman for default on the bond. To escape a suit by her or More, Hunnis and Newman transferred their sublease to Henry Evans, a Welsh scrivener and theatrical affectionado. This unauthorised assignment of the sublease gave More an excuse to bring suit to retake possession of the property, but Evans used legal delays and finally escaped legal action by selling the sublease to Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, sometime after Michaelmas Term (November) of 1583, who then gave it to his secretary, the writer John Lyly.[8]
As proprietor of the playhouse, Lyly installed Evans as the manager of the new company of Oxford's Boys, composed of the Children of the Chapel and the Children of Paul's, and turned his talents to play writing. Lyly's Campaspe was performed at Blackfriars[9] and subsequently at Court on New Year's Day 1584; likewise, his Sapho and Phao was produced first at Blackfriars on Shrove Tuesday[9] and then at court on 3 March, with Lyly listed as the payee for both Court appearances. In November 1583, Hunnis, still Master of the Chapel Children, successfully petitioned the Queen to increase the stipend to house, feed, and clothe the company. More finally obtained a legal judgement voiding the original lease at the end of Easter Term (June) of 1584, thereby ending the First Blackfriars Playhouse after eight years and postponing the performance of Lyly's third play, Gallathea.[10]
Second theatre
Conjectural reconstruction of the second Blackfriars Theatre from contemporary documents.
The second Blackfriars was an indoor theatre built elsewhere on the property at the instigation of James Burbage, father of Richard Burbage, and impresario of the Lord Chamberlain's Men. In 1596, Burbage purchased, for £600, the frater of the former priory and rooms below. This large space, perhaps 100 feet (30m) long and 50 wide (15 metres), with high ceilings allowed Burbage to construct two galleries, substantially increasing potential attendance. The nature of Burbage's modifications to his purchase is not clear, and the many contemporary references to the theatre do not offer a precise picture of its design. Once fitted for playing, the space may have been about 69 feet (21m) long and 46 feet (14m) wide (20 by 14 metres), including tiring areas. There were at least two and possibly three galleries, and perhaps a number of stage boxes adjacent to the stage. Estimates of its capacity have varied from below 600 to almost 1000, depending on the number of galleries and boxes.[11] Perhaps as many as ten spectators would have encumbered the stage.
As Burbage built, however, a petition from the residents of the wealthy neighbourhood and led by Lady Elizabeth Russell,[12] persuaded the Privy Council to forbid playing there.[12] Referring to "divers both honorable and others then inhabiting the said precinct" and "what inconveniences were likely to fall upon them from a common playhouse"[12] the letter was signed even by Lord Hunsdon, patron of Burbage's company, and by Richard Field, the Blackfriars printer and hometown neighbour of William Shakespeare.[13] The company was absolutely forbidden to perform there. Three years later, Richard Burbage was able to lease the property to Henry Evans, who had been among those ejected more than fifteen years earlier. Evans entered a partnership with Nathaniel Giles, Hunnis's successor at the Chapel Royal. They used the theatre for a commercial enterprise with a group called the Children of the Chapel, which combined the choristers of the chapel with other boys, many taken up from local grammar schools under colour of Giles's warrant to provide entertainment for the Queen. The dubious legality of these dramatic impressments led to a challenge from a father in 1600; however, this method brought the company some of its most famous actors, including Nathaniel Field and Salmon Pavy. The residents did not protest at this use, probably because of perceived social differences between the adult and child companies.
While it housed this company, Blackfriars was the site of an explosion of innovative drama and staging. Together with its competitor, Paul's Children, the Blackfriars company produced plays by a number of the most talented young dramatists of Jacobean literature, among them Thomas Middleton, Ben Jonson, George Chapman, and John Marston. Chapman and Jonson wrote almost exclusively for Blackfriars in this period, while Marston began with Paul's but switched to Blackfriars, in which he appears to have been a sharer, by around 1605. In the latter half of the decade, the company at Blackfriars premiered plays by Francis Beaumont (The Knight of the Burning Pestle) and John Fletcher (The Faithful Shepherdess) that, although failures in their first production, marked the first significant appearance of these two dramatists, whose work would profoundly affect early Stuart drama. The new plays of all these playwrights deliberately pushed the accepted boundaries of personal and social satire, of violence on stage, and of sexual frankness. These plays appear to have attracted members of a higher social class than was the norm at the Bankside and Shoreditch theatres, and the admission price (sixpence for a cheap seat) probably excluded the poorer patrons of the amphitheatres. Prefaces and internal references speak of gallants and Inns of Court men, who came not only to see a play but also, of course, to be seen; the private theatres sold seats on the stage itself.
The Blackfriars playhouse was also the source of other innovations which would profoundly change the nature of English commercial staging: it was among the first commercial theatrical enterprises to rely on artificial lighting, and it featured music between acts, a practice which the induction to Marston's The Malcontent (1604) indicates was not common in the public theatres at that time.
In the years around the turn of the century, the children's companies were something of a phenomenon; a reference in Hamlet to "little eyasses" suggests that even the adult companies felt threatened by them.[14] By the later half of that decade, the fashion had changed somewhat. In 1608, Burbage's company (by this time, the King's Men) took possession of the theatre, which they still owned, this time without objections from the neighbourhood. There were originally seven sharers in the reorganised theatre: Richard Burbage, William Shakespeare, Henry Condell, John Heminges, and William Sly, all members of the King's Men, plus Cuthbert Burbage and Thomas Evans, agent for the theatre manager Henry Evans. This arrangement of shareholders (or "housekeepers) was similar to how the Globe Theatre was operated.[5] Sly, however, died soon after the arrangement was made, and his share was divided among the other six.
After renovations, the King's Men began using the theatre for performances in 1609. Thereafter the King's Men played in Blackfriars for the seven months in winter, and at the Globe during the summer. Blackfriars appears to have brought in a little over twice the revenue of the Globe; the shareholders could earn as much as £13 from a single performance, apart from what went to the actors.[15]
In the reign of Charles I, even Queen Henrietta Maria was in the Blackfriars audience. On 13 May 1634 she and her attendants saw a play by Philip Massinger; in late 1635 or early 1636 they saw Lodowick Carlell's Arviragus and Philicia, part 2; and they attended a third performance in May 1636.[16]
The theatre closed at the onset of the English Civil War, and was demolished on 6 August 1655.[17]
The American Shakespeare Center's Blackfriars Playhouse in Staunton, Virginia, is a re-creation of a Jacobean theatre based on what is known of the original Blackfriars.[18] Completed at a cost of $3.7 million,[19] the 300-seat theatre opened in September 2001.[18] Architect Tom McLaughlin based the design on plans for other 17th-century theatres, his own trips to England to view surviving halls of the period, Shakespeare's stage directions and other research and consultation.[20] The lighting imitates that of the original Blackfriars.[21]
During the construction of Shakespeare's Globe, London, in the 1990s, the shell for an indoor theatre was built next door, to house a "simulacrum" of the Blackfriars Theatre.[22] As no reliable plans of the Blackfriars are known, the plan for the new theatre was based on drawings found in the 1960s at Worcester College, Oxford, at first thought to date from the early 17th century,[23] and to be the work of Inigo Jones. The shell was built to accommodate a theatre as specified by the drawings, and the planned name was the Inigo Jones Theatre.[24] In 2005, the drawings were dated to 1660 and attributed to John Webb.[23] They nevertheless represent the earliest known plan for an English theatre, and are thought to approximate the layout of the Blackfriars Theatre.[22] Some features believed to be typical of earlier in the 17th century were added to the new theatre's design.[23]
Completed at a cost of £7.5 million, the theatre opened as the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse in January 2014.[25] Designed by Jon Greenfield, in collaboration with Allies and Morrison, it is an oak structure built inside the building's brick shell.[26] The thrust stage is surmounted by a musicians' gallery, and the theatre has an ornately painted ceiling. The seating capacity is 340, with benches in a pit and two horse-shoe galleries,[25] placing the audience close to the actors.[27] Shutters around the first gallery admit artificial daylight. When the shutters are closed, lighting is provided by beeswax candles mounted in sconces, as well as on six height-adjustable chandeliers and even held by the actors.[25]
See also
Mermaid Theatre (1959), a modern theatre built on, or near the original site
1 2 Menzer, Paul (2006). "Afterword: Discovery Spaces? Research at the Globe and Blackfriars". In Menzer, Paul (ed.). Inside Shakespeare: Essays on the Blackfriars Stage. Cranberry NJ: Associated University Presses. p.223. ISBN1-57591-077-2.
English Renaissance theatre, also known as Renaissance English theatre and Elizabethan theatre, refers to the theatre of England between 1558 and 1642.
The Master of the Revels was the holder of a position within the English, and later the British, royal household, heading the "Revels Office" or "Office of the Revels". The Master of the Revels was an executive officer under the Lord Chamberlain. Originally he was responsible for overseeing royal festivities, known as revels, and he later also became responsible for stage censorship, until this function was transferred to the Lord Chamberlain in 1624. However, Henry Herbert, the deputy Master of the Revels and later the Master, continued to perform the function on behalf of the Lord Chamberlain until the English Civil War in 1642, when stage plays were prohibited. The office continued almost until the end of the 18th century, although with rather reduced status.
Richard Burbage was an English stage actor, widely considered to have been one of the most famous actors of the Globe Theatre and of his time. In addition to being a stage actor, he was also a theatre owner, entrepreneur, and painter. He was the younger brother of Cuthbert Burbage. They were both actors in drama. Burbage was a business associate and friend to William Shakespeare.
The Globe Theatre was a theatre in London associated with William Shakespeare. It was built in 1599 at Southwark, close to the south bank of the Thames, by Shakespeare's playing company, the Lord Chamberlain's Men. It was destroyed by fire on 29 June 1613. A second Globe Theatre was built on the same site by June 1614 and stayed open until the London theatre closures of 1642. As well as plays by Shakespeare, early works by Ben Jonson, Thomas Dekker and John Fletcher were first performed here.
The Theatre was an Elizabethan playhouse in Shoreditch, just outside the City of London. Built in 1576, after the Red Lion, it was the first permanent theatre built exclusively for the showing of theatrical productions in England, and its first successful one. Actor-manager James Burbage built it near the family home in Holywell Street. The Theatre's history includes a number of important acting troupes including the Lord Chamberlain's Men, which employed Shakespeare as actor and playwright. After a dispute with the landlord, the theatre was dismantled and the timbers used in the construction of the Globe Theatre on Bankside.
James Burbage was an English actor, theatre impresario, joiner, and theatre builder in the English Renaissance theatre. He built The Theatre, the first permanent dedicated theatre built in England since Roman times.
The King's Men was the acting company to which William Shakespeare (1564–1616) belonged for most of his career. Formerly known as the Lord Chamberlain's Men during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, they became the King's Men in 1603 when King James I ascended the throne and became the company's patron.
John Heminges was an actor in the King's Men, the playing company for which William Shakespeare wrote. Along with Henry Condell, he was an editor of the First Folio, the collected plays of Shakespeare, published in 1623. He was also the financial manager for the King's Men.
The Lord Chamberlain's Men was a company of actors, or a "playing company", for which William Shakespeare wrote during most of his career. Richard Burbage played most of the lead roles, including Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth. Formed at the end of a period of flux in the theatrical world of London, it had become, by 1603, one of the two leading companies of the city and was subsequently patronized by James I.
Shakespeare's Globe is a realistic true-to-history reconstruction of the Globe Theatre, an Elizabethan playhouse first built in 1599 for which William Shakespeare wrote his plays. It is located on the south bank of the River Thames, in the London Borough of Southwark and hosts theatrical productions.
A boy player was a male child or teenager who performed in Medieval and English Renaissance playing companies. Some boy players worked for adult companies and performed the female roles, since women were not allowed to perform on the English stage during this period. Others worked for children's companies in which all roles, not just the female ones, were played by boys.
The Children of the Chapel are the boys with unbroken voices, choristers, who form part of the Chapel Royal, the body of singers and priests serving the spiritual needs of their sovereign wherever they were called upon to do so. They were overseen by the Master of the Children of the Chapel Royal.
The Children of Paul's was the name of a troupe of boy actors in Elizabethan and Jacobean London. Along with the Children of the Chapel, they were an important component of the companies of boy players that constituted a distinctive feature of English Renaissance theatre.
John Shank was an actor in English Renaissance theatre, a leading comedian in the King's Men during the 1620s and 1630s.
John Underwood was an early 17th-century actor, a member of the King's Men, the theatrics company of William Shakespeare.
Henry Evans was the Welsh scrivener and theatrical producer primarily responsible for organising and co-ordinating the activities of the Children of the Chapel and the Children of Paul's at Blackfriars Theatre for a short period in 1583–84. He later led a consortium of investors who leased the theatre during a much longer second phase, after the property was revived by Richard Burbage and Cuthbert Burbage.
Peter Street was an English carpenter and builder in London in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. He built the Fortune Playhouse, and probably the Globe Theatre, two significant establishments in the history of the stage in London. He had a part in building King James's Banqueting House in Whitehall Palace and he may have been responsible for the settings for the king's royal masques.
Sir William More, of Loseley, Surrey, was the son of Sir Christopher More. The great house at Loseley Park was built for him, which is still the residence of the More Molyneux family. Of Protestant sympathies, as Sheriff and Vice-Admiral of Surrey he was actively involved in local administration of the county of Surrey and in the enforcement of the Elizabethan religious settlement, and was a member of every Parliament during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. He was the owner of property in the Blackfriars in which the first and second Blackfriars theatres were erected. He has been described as "the perfect Elizabethan country gentleman" on account of his impeccable character and his assiduity and efficiency of service.
The Sam Wanamaker Playhouse is an indoor theatre forming part of Shakespeare's Globe, along with the Globe Theatre on Bankside, London. Built making use of 17th-century plans for an indoor theatre, the playhouse recalls the layout and style of the Blackfriars Theatre, although it is not an exact reconstruction. Its shell was built during the construction of the Shakespeare's Globe complex, notable for the reconstruction of the open-air Globe Theatre of the same period. The shell was used as a space for education workshops and rehearsals until enough money was raised to complete the playhouse. It opened in January 2014, named after Sam Wanamaker, the leading figure in the Globe's reconstruction.
Ralph Alan Cohen is an American educator, scholar theatre director, and academic entrepreneur. He is the co-founder and Senior Advisor of the American Shakespeare Center, a theater company located in Staunton, Virginia. In 2001, as Executive Director of the ASC, he was also Project Director for the building of the Blackfriars Playhouse, a recreation of the Blackfriars Theatre, England’s first purpose-built indoor theatre, and home to Shakespeare’s company, the King’s Men until the closing of the theatres in 1642.
Menzer, Paul; Cohen, Ralph Alan (2006). "Introduction". In Menzer, Paul (ed.). Inside Shakespeare: Essays on the Blackfriars Stage. Susquehanna University Press. pp.7–16. ISBN1-57591-077-2. Retrieved 25 January 2012.
Smith, Irwin (1964). Shakespeare's Blackfriars Playhouse: Its History and Design. New York University Press. ISBN978-0-8147-0391-5.
Stern, Tiffany (2006). "Actors and Audiences on the Stage at Blackfriars". In Menzer, Paul (ed.). Inside Shakespeare: Essays on the Blackfriars Stage. Susquehanna University Press. pp.35–53. ISBN1-57591-077-2.
Stopes, Charlotte Carmichael (1907). Shakespeare's Warwickshire Contemporaries. Stratford-upon-Avon: Shakespeare Head Press.
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