The Elizabethans built the first permanent theatres in London. There were two kinds of theatres. One was the amphitheatre, which is of the same type as the rebuilt Globe Theatre. The more expensive seats and the stage were both roofed over, but the body of the theatre was open to the sky. The other type was the hall, which was based on the great hall of wealthy people's houses in which drama ahd been performed for centuries. This type of theatre was smaller than the amphitheatres, but was completely roofed over and therefore more comfortable. due to their smaller capacity, the tickets cost more in a hall theatre, so that poorer people could not afford to go to them. The cheapest seats at the Globe in 1600, standing in the open air in the yard, cost 1d, which was cheap entertainment. the cheapest seats in the hall houses were 6d, which was half a London artisan's weekly wage.
The London audience was not only large but relatively well educated. There were, of course, no detailed figures concerning literacy kept at this time, but it seems that in London on 18 percent of apprentices and 3 ppercent of servants could not sign their names, whereas in the provinces in the same social class of people 73 percent may not have been literate. These figures are only a rough and ready estimate, but it deos give an indication that the London audience was liable to appreciate writers like Shakespeare and Marlowe. Theatre audiences were large, even considering London's growing population. The amphitheatres held about 2,500 people and the halls about 1,000 people and estimates for 1595 suggest that about 15,000 people visited the theatre weekly. The programme changed very frequently, so that the same play was rarely performed on consecutive nights. You could go to the theatre every week and see a different play each time.
The number of plays being staged in London certainly seems to have impressed visitors. 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 certainly had to work for their money as a result. They often performed a different play every day and had to produce new plays frequently. In the 1594/5 season the Admiral's Men performed six days a week and offered no fewer than thirty-eight plays that season, of which twenty-one were new. Two of the new plays were only given one performance and only eight of the new plays were performed about once a month.
The performance would have taken place in full daylight, unlike today when audiences sit in the dark so all your attenton is naturally focused on the stage. There was no interval and the performance lasted about three hours. This was an age when people could listen to sermons for hours, so presumably they must ahve had more staying power than modern audiences. However, concentrating for the whole time would have been hard work given the distractions, particularly the hawkers who were walking around selling food and drink. Thomas Platter commented that 'during the performance foodd and drink are carried round the audience so that for what one cares to pay one may also have refreshment.' The favourite foods seem to have been apples and nuts. For example, in his play Wit Without Money, Fletcher talks of people who 'crack nuts with the Scholars in penny Rooms again,and fight for apples.' Cracking nuts seems to have caused the same annoyance that people rustling sweet-papers does today.
The conditions in the theatre were not very comfortable by modern standards but ordinary people of the time can hardly have thought them that bad. Thomas Platter comments that it was possible to pay for cushioned seats at the theatre, but that such seats cost 3d as opposed to the 2d it cost for a wooden bench or 1d it cost to stand in the yard. Most people were used to hard wooden benches as upholstery was a luxury for the wealthy.
Despite the popularity of plays, the professions of both actor and playwright were not highly regarded at the time. Then as now, most members of both professions were certainly not well off and there were still many actors who scraped a living by wandering about the country and who never enjoyed the relatively prosperity of working with a London company. At a time when 'masterless men' were mistrusted, actors must have hardly seemed like respectable members of society. The actors working in the permanent theatrres in London were far better off than those who had to tour constantly. At times of plague the theatres were closed, so the actors had to go on the road to make a living. Philip Henslowe's contract with one of his hired men, William Kendal, states that he is to be paid 10s a week while working in London but only 5s on tour 'in the country'. This demonstrates how much lower the troupe's profits were expected to be if they had to go on tour.
