English Renaissance theatre

English Renaissance theatre, also known as early modern English theatre, or (commonly) as Elizabethan theatre, refers to the theatre of England between 1562 and 1642.

This is the style of the plays of William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe and Ben Jonson.

Background

English Renaissance theatre encompasses the period between 1562 (performance at the Inner Temple during the Christmas season of 1561 of Gorboduc, the first English play using blank verse) and 1642 (ban on theatrical plays enacted by the English Parliament).

The phrase Elizabethan theatre is used at times improperly, especially in languages other than English, to mean English Renaissance theatre, even though in a strict sense this only applies to 1603. Strictly speaking one distinguishes within English Renaissance theatre between Elizabethan theatre from 1562 to 1603, Jacobean theatre from 1603 to 1625 and Caroline theatre from 1625 to 1642.

Along with the economics of the profession, the character of the drama changed towards the end of the period. Under Elizabeth, the drama was a unified expression as far as social class was concerned: the Court watched the same plays the commoners saw in the public playhouses. With the development of the private theatres, drama became more oriented towards the tastes and values of an upper-class audience. By the later part of the reign of Charles I, few new plays were being written for the public theatres, which sustained themselves on the accumulated works of the previous decades.

English Renaissance

The English Renaissance was a cultural and artistic movement in England dating from the late 15th to the early 17th century. It is associated with the pan-European Renaissance that is usually regarded as beginning in Italy in the late 14th century. Like most of northern Europe, England saw little of these developments until more than a century later. The beginning of the English Renaissance is often taken, as a convenience, to be 1485, when the Battle of Bosworth ended the Wars of the Roses and inaugurated the Tudor Dynasty. Renaissance style and ideas, however, were slow to penetrate England, and the Elizabethan era in the second half of the 16th century is usually regarded as the height of the English Renaissance.

The English Renaissance is different from the Italian Renaissance in several ways. The dominant art forms of the English Renaissance were literature and music. Visual arts in the English Renaissance were much less significant than in the Italian Renaissance. The English period began far later than the Italian, which is usually considered to begin in the late 14th century, and was moving into Mannerism and the Baroque by the 1550s or earlier. In contrast, the English Renaissance can only be said to begin, shakily, in the 1520s, and continued until perhaps 1620.

Renaissance theatre

For Renaissance theatre see

See also

Renaissance Theatre (Mansfield, Ohio)

The Renaissance Theatre, previously known as the Ohio Theatre, is a restored movie palace-type theater located at 136 Park Ave. W in Mansfield, Ohio. The 1,600 seat theater opened on January 19, 1928 as the Ohio Theatre and serves today as the largest performing arts center in North-Central Ohio. The Renaissance is home to the Miss Ohio Scholarship Pageant, the state competition for the Miss America Pageant.

History

The Miss Ohio Pageant played a significant role in the saving of the Ohio Theatre and its renovation into the Renaissance Theatre. Mansfield originally hosted the Miss Ohio Pageant at the old Ohio Theatre from 1959 through 1962. After Sandusky's Jacquelyn Mayer, Miss Ohio 1963, was crowned Miss America 1963, the Miss Ohio Pageant was relocated to the Ballroom Pavilion at Cedar Point Amusement Park in Sandusky. In 1975, the pageant returned to Mansfield, first to Malabar High School Auditorium from 1975 through 1978, then to the Madison Theatre in 1979. In 1980, it was decided to televise the pageant. Because of inadequate stage depth and backstage space at the Madison Theatre, then pageant producer Denny Keller and pageant set designer Paul Gilger persuaded the Miss Ohio Board of Directors to move the pageant back to Mansfield's Ohio Theatre, reopening the facility and sprucing it up for the pageant's first televised broadcast. The pageant's return to the old Ohio Theatre was the initial event that eventually led to the total renovation of the theatre and its reincarnation into the Renaissance Theatre. The Miss Ohio Scholarship Program has been held at the theatre continuously since 1980, for 35 years. (For more on the theater's history, go to Renaissance Theatre history website).