Theatre History
THEATER DURING THE RENAISSANCE
1455
Johannes Gutenberg (Germany) 1455
Invented the printing press! This was the first form of
mass communication and a principle catalyst of the
Renaissance (re-birth) of learning and art in Europe.
Renaissance Playwrights
Spanish Theater / Spain had its Golden Age of Theatre with an incredible
30,000 plays written by A.D. 1700.
Lope de Vega / wrote 2,000 plays
Cervantes and Calderon, are considered the greatest Spanish playwrights of
the period.
Their plays are still being produced today.
Renaissance Playwrights
French Theatre
Racine (Phaedre) and Cornielle (Le Cid)
are considered the most lasting writers of
tragedy.
Moliere (The Miser, The Misanthrope,
and The Imaginary Invalid) great comic
writer and most lasting playwright in
France’s History and are still performed
today.
Renaissance Playwrights
German Theater
Hans Sachs, wrote 198 farcical plays and playlets.
English Theater
England’s neoclassic playwrights left more great plays than other countries or
period in history, except maybe the Greeks.
Christopher Marlowe / Dr. Faustus
Ben Johnson / Valpone and the Alchemist
Thomas Kyd / The Spanish Tragedy
Shakespeare (April 26, 1564 – April 23, 1616)
Born and died in Stratford-upon-Avon Warwickshire, England
Age of 18 Married, Anne Hathaway
They had 3 children / Susanna, twins Judith and Hamnet
The Globe 1599 – 1613 (fire) rebuilt 1614 - today
Shakespeare’s Plays (38 plays)
Shakespeare Quotes
“To be or not to be: that is the question.”
Hamlet
“All the world ‘s a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits
and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts.”
As You Like It
“Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust
upon them.”
Twelfth Night
“I am one who loved not wisely but too well.”
Othello
Shakespeare Quotes
“Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps.”
Much Ado About Nothing
“What light through younder window breaks.”
Romeo and Juliet
“If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we
not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?”
The Merchant of Venice
Italy’s Contribution to Renaissance Theater
 Opera / they created a whole new merging
of music and drama, supported by art and
costuming.
Commedia dell’ arte, translates to “drama by
professional actors”. Use stock characters.
Created slapstick (Farce; silly comedy).
Examples / Charlie Chaplin, The Keystone Cops,
and the Three Stooges
Italy cont.
 Perspective / objects in the
distance appear smaller than
object of similar size in the
foreground.
Proscenium Arch / picture
frame effect to the theater
stage.
Europe – From Renaissance to Realism 1650-1870
Goldoni / The Servant of Two Masters
Goldsmith / She Stoops to Conquer
Sheridan / The School for Scandal
Oscar Wilde / The Importance of being
Earnest
Europe – From Renaissance to Realism 1650-1870
Comedy of Manners Style / often poked fun at the wealthy, courtly people who
paid to see the plays are still played in theaters today.
Elsewhere in Europe, German writers, Goethe and Schiller, and French authors,
Hugo and Rostand, strong believed in the rights of the common man and often
wrote about him instead of royalty and wealthy. In addition to writing some fine
plays, these authors were know as the Romantics, and helped usher in the
common man and The Age of Realism.