Allison P. Hobgood tells a new story about the emotional experiences of theatregoers in Renaissance England. Through detailed case studies of canonical plays by Shakespeare, Jonson, Kyd and Heywood, the reader will discover what it felt like to be part of performances in English theatre and appreciate the key role theatregoers played in the life of early modern drama. How were spectators moved - by delight, fear or shame, for example - and how did their own reactions in turn make an impact on stage performances? Addressing these questions and many more, this book discerns not just how theatregoers were altered by drama's affective encounters, but how they were undeniable influences upon those encounters. Overall, Hobgood reveals a unique collaboration between the English world and stage, one that significantly reshapes the ways we watch, read and understand early modern drama.

How was the experience of watching a play influenced by practices beyond the walls of the playhouse, and what were the broader social and historical implications of the culture of playgoing? This book sets out to answer such questions. Since the two authors have very different perspectives on the issues discussed, they have chosen a unique format: rather than submerging their opposition, they have highlighted it. Their attacks and counter-attacks, as they contest each other's views in paired chapters, result in a lively and illuminating debate.

Not every presidential visit to the theater is as famous as Lincoln's last night at Ford's, but American presidents attended the theater long before and long after that ill-fated night. As a young man in 1751, George Washington saw his first play, The London Merchant, during a visit to Barbados. John Quincy Adams understood theater well enough to publish dramatic critiques. William McKinley, on the other hand, avoided theatrical performances while in office, on professional as well as moral grounds. Dwight Eisenhower used drama as a vehicle for political propaganda. Richard Nixon took a more personal view of theater, having met his wife at a community theater audition.Surveying 255 years, this volume examines presidential theater-going as it reflects shifting popular tastes in America. To this end, it provides a chronology of theater attendance throughout the lives of all 43 American presidents. Defining theater as a live dramatic performance (including opera but excluding ballet), the book details the attendance habits and theatrical tastes of each chief executive as well as the ways in which his choices reflected the mores and tastes of his contemporary American public. An afterword provides a summary of presidential theater-going preferences.

This edited collection of essays brings together leading scholars of early modern drama and playhouse culture to reflect upon the study of playing and playgoing in early modern England. With a particular focus on the player-playgoer exchange as a site of dramatic meaning-making, this book offers a timely and significant critical intervention in the field of Shakespeare and early modern drama. Working with and reflecting upon approaches drawn from literary scholarship, theatre history and performance studies, it seeks to advance the critical conversation on the interactions between: players; play-texts; performance spaces; the bodily, sensory and material experiences of the playhouse; and playgoers' responses to, and engagements with, the theatre. Through alternative methodological and theoretical approaches, previously unknown or overlooked evidence, and fresh questions asked of long-familiar materials, the volume offers a new account of early modern drama and performance that seeks to set the agenda for future research and scholarship.

Allison P. Hobgood tells a new story about the emotional experiences of theatregoers in Renaissance England. Through detailed case studies of canonical plays by Shakespeare, Jonson, Kyd and Heywood, the reader will discover what it felt like to be part of performances in English theatre and appreciate the key role theatregoers played in the life of early modern drama. How were spectators moved - by delight, fear or shame, for example - and how did their own reactions in turn make an impact on stage performances? Addressing these questions and many more, this book discerns not just how theatregoers were altered by drama's affective encounters, but how they were undeniable influences upon those encounters. Overall, Hobgood reveals a unique collaboration between the English world and stage, one that significantly reshapes the ways we watch, read and understand early modern drama.

How was the experience of watching a play influenced by practices beyond the walls of the playhouse, and what were the broader social and historical implications of the culture of playgoing? The book sets out to answer such questions. Interested first in what happened within the playhouse itself, the authors focus on the person of the actor, on stage props, visual pleasure and audience behaviour. At the same time, their discussion moves outward to consider a range of cultural assumptions and practices - such as eucharistic controversy, prostitution, social mobility, iconoclasm, Renaissance optics, the formation of national memory, and the dissemination of news. Since the two authors have very different perspectives on these issues, they have chosen a unique format: rather than submerging their opposition, they have highlighted it. Their attacks and counter-attacks, as they contest each other's views in paired chapters, result in a lively and illuminating debate.

This is a newly revised edition of Andrew Gurr's classic account of the people for whom Shakespeare wrote his plays. Gurr assembles evidence from the writings of the time to describe the physical structure of the playhouses, the services provided in the auditorium, the cost of a ticket and a cushion, the size of the crowds, the smells, the pickpockets, and the collective feelings generated by the plays. As well as revising and adding new material which has emerged since the second edition, Gurr develops new sections. He considers the difference between Shakespearean and modern thinking about early staging, the complex historical process which established the permanent playhouses, and the development of a distinctly different acting style in the open-air playhouses from that of the indoor halls. Fifty new entries have been added to the list of playgoers and there are a dozen fresh quotations about the experience of playgoing.

This is a newly revised edition of Andrew Gurr's classic account of the people for whom Shakespeare wrote his plays. Gurr assembles evidence from the writings of the time to describe the physical structure of the playhouses, the services provided in the auditorium, the cost of a ticket and a cushion, the size of the crowds, the smells, the pickpockets, and the collective feelings generated by the plays. As well as revising and adding new material which has emerged since the second edition, Gurr develops new sections. He considers the difference between Shakespearean and modern thinking about early staging, the complex historical process which established the permanent playhouses, and the development of a distinctly different acting style in the open-air playhouses from that of the indoor halls. Fifty new entries have been added to the list of playgoers and there are a dozen fresh quotations about the experience of playgoing.

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