Policies towards art/theatre in elizabethan england?

Question

Can someone describe the policies towards the arts and theatre, not necessarily just shakespeare

Answer 1

Theatre was the tv soap opera of the day.

Answer 2

The Elizabethan era was during the Renaissance, so art, theatre and even fields like architecture were expanding greatly all across Europe.

In Elizabethan England however, the arts basically covered all entertainment. Drama, plays in general... you name it! Whenever the queen's (Elizabeth's) court was to have any kind of function, or any function with royalty or swelath happening, entertainment was always provided. This was incredibly different from the Medieval era, as in the Ranaissance, entertainment would involve acting and dancing, not deformed humans and dwarfs as they would have used in the Middle Ages.

Outside dinner entertainment, the English Renaissance Theatre and opera industries were expanding greatly. The modern playwrights had just come in after all. Shakespeare... was the most popular playwright of his time, however her was nnot the only one. There were other playwrights and authors such as Christoper Marlow, John Fletcher, Francis Beaumont, Thomas Middleton and Thomas Kyd.

So basically, everyone in Europe after the Middle Ages and during the Renaissance welcomed theatre and arts. It was after all a time of new birth, exploration and a whole new age of learning.

Hope this helped!

-Tim :]

Answer 3

The role of theatre in Elizabethan England was entertainment. Thousands of people would go the huge variety of theatres every day. They would use the theatre as an excuse not to be working and if they were at the theatre and got bored they would just boo the actors on stage.

Another role was expression of freedom. The playwrights could do or say whatever they wanted while on stage and so they would use that to express their view and opinions.

The one last role was to bring back the past. Playwrights would try to recreate historic events that happened.

Answer 4

The theatre was generally considered quite a low form of entertainment, but people still enjoyed going to it.  It wasn't really considered respectable though and actors were regarded as riff-raff.  Some theatrical companies however managed to attract noble patronage, and that gave them a better status than other companies.  Shakespeare's company was known as the Lord chamberlain's Men, and later under the reign of King James I became the King's men.

James Burbage built a theatre in Blackfriars in 1595, but the residents objected, so he was never able to open it.  Eventually his son Richard built a theatre in Southwark, south of the Thames, the Globe.  Theatres were a cheap form of entertainment so they were very popular with poor people, but wealthy people used to attend as well.  It was not thought respectable for women to go to the theatre on their own as the Southwark playhouses were surrounded by brothels, and unescorted women tended to be assumed to be whores.

Large numbers of plays were produced at this time, and a visitor to London, Thomas Platter, noted that "daily at two in the afternoon, London has two, sometimes three plays running in different places, competing with each other, and those which play best obtain most spectators"  The players often performed a different play daily and had to produce new plays frequently.  In the 1594/5 season,t he Admiral's Men performed six days a week and offered no fewer than thirty-eight plays that season, of which twenty-one were new.

There were boys companies which tended to be regarded as more respectable than the adult companies.  These boys companies were based on the choir schools of the Children of the Chapel Royal and St. Paul's.  Playing was only part of thei reducation, as they were also given more academic training.

Music was popular with everyone, and many people were enthusiastic amateur music-makers.  Every great household employed its own musicians, and even in middle-class homes a servant who could paly an instrument or sing to entertain the company was highly prized.  Anyone with the least pretensions to culture was expected to be able to performon an instrument and read music at sight.

Queen Elizabeth reduced the number of royal musicians in her service, in 1570 she had about thirty-three musicians in her service and twenty-nine in 1590.  Elizabeth was happy to pay a premium price to keep the services of a favoured musician.  The Italian composer Alfonso Rerrabosco was given a pension of £100 a year.  Like her father Elizabeth was a keen musician herself having been taught to play the lute and virginals as a girl.

While rich in poets, playwrights and musicians, England had less to offer in the field of painting.  Portrait painters were much in demand - everybody who was anybody had his or her likeness painted - but the fashionable artists, men such as Marcus Gheeraerts and Daniel Mytens, came mostly from abroad.  Only in the art of "painting in little" was the native school supreme, as exemplified in the work of the miniaturists Nicholas Hillard and his pupil Isaac Oliver.