Second Semester Changes• Seating Charts – will last for the semester• Bring a pencil or borrow from someone else; I’m not
buying any this semester1• Hall Passes – 4 per semester – sign out to go.• Dear on Friday– Bring a book/magazine/newspaper
• Notebooks– Will be checked each Friday – 50 points each check– Three sections
• Notes and Handouts• Openers• Homework
Opening Agenda•Things to Get: •One piece of notebook paper•The article and the note sheet
•Things to Do: •Opener • on your own paper• return reading
•Class work:•Commedia dell’Arte notes
OpenerRead the article entitled “The Italian Renaissance” and answer
the following questions on your own notebook paper.
1) What were the Neoclassical ideals and why were they very important?
2) What is verisimilitude and how did it influence Renaissance playwrights?
3) How did innovations in visual art influence the Renaissance theatre?
4) Who were the most important individuals in Renaissance theatre innovations?
5) List five examples of things these individuals developed. 6) What was the proscenium arch’s purpose in Renaissance
theatre?7) Why were Renaissance theaters larger and larger and deeper
and deeper8) Was new scenery created for each play?
Commedia dell’ Arte
• improvisational comedy• Traveling actors • invented dialogue for bare plot outline• Used novels, gossip, and current events• cast of 12 stock characters (stereotyped
personalities)• 9 men/3 women – all played by men
History and Background
• 1500-1700’s• Italy• Manager led troupe/wrote scripts• 2 Stock character types:
upper class and servant class• Characters identified by costumes/masks• Mobile stage
Scenarios-plot outlines posted backstage before each performance
Lazzi-memorized lines/humorous scenes-apart from main action-ignored by main characters
Stock CharactersPulcinella
hunchbackchases womenzanni
La Ruffiana (Old Woman) mother or gossipy townswomanintrudes into the lives of the Lovers.
Zanni poor servants from Bergamo, Italymove to Venice for better jobs
Arlecchino • Servant• zanni• poor peasant • Illiterate, pretends to read• Acrobat/clown• hits other characters with a baton
or stick-slapstick(homey the clown)
• patchworked clothing shows poor status/resourcefulness
Brighella• fat and slow • always the butt of a joke• simpelton • told not to do things
but desires get the better of him or her
Capitano• Boastful but cowardly Spainard• Brags of battles never fought and romances
never experienced(who does he look like?)
Pantalone • rich and miserly merchant• father of one of the lovers• employs Arlecchino and
treats him cruelly
Commedia dell-arteOn the bottom of your notes:
• While watching the following clip, identify similarities between the Commedia dell-arte characteristics and Whose Line is it anyways.
Opening Agenda•Things to Get: •One piece of notebook paper•The article and the note sheet
•Things to Do: •Opener Review Questions 5 minutes•Reading with questions• do both on the same piece of paper• return reading
•Class work:Elizabethan Theatre notes
Opener Review1. Define Commedia Dell Arte.2. What modern character was modeled after
Arrlecchino?3. True or False: Commedia Dell Arte was
improvisational comedy with fully written scripts.4. True or False: Women acted in Commedia Dell
Arte.5. True or False: Lazzi were memorized lines used if
improv was not working.
The Elizabethan Theatre The Elizabethan Age
1. Where is the Renaissance known as “The Elizabethan Age”?
2. What allowed for the theatre to develop during this time period?
3. Why were Elizabethan Theatres outside of city limits?
4. Describe what a typical Elizabethan theater looked like:
5. How did plays written in England differ from plays written in Italy and on the European continent?
6. Who was Christopher Marlowe?
7. What type of dramatic poetry did he use? Describe this form of poetry:
The Elizabethan Age
• England’s Renaissance– named after Queen Elizabeth
1st – love of language and the art
of theater
Developments to Theater
• Went from amateur status to professional status– Effect: Companies of
professional actors gave playwrights a more stable and experienced group of performers
• Building of permanent theaters– Spaces were now
specifically designed to present plays
Theater Hating
• The church thought that “all theatre that was not religious in nature was evil”– No theaters in
London• White Flag flying=
play today
The Globe Theater
Theater Construction
• Circular or octagonal• Three stories• Open roof• Open platform with little or
no scenery placed on it• Plat form stage surrounded
on three sides by an audience (closer to a proscenium arch stage)– Tiring house: stage house; backdrop for the
action– Inner Stage: roofed area that was used to
suggest an inside setting (back of the platform)
– Musicians’ gallery: where a small group of musicians would play music
Form of English Plays• Series of brief scenes that
frequently changed location from place to place– one group of characters left the
stage and another group entered, the audience knew that the scene was changing
– spoken décor: when a character signals a scene change by announcing it
• freer use of stage space• Iambic pentameter: words have 2
syllables to each beat and when spoken, stress is place on the second beat
Spectators• Wealthy got benches• “Groundlings”>poorer
people stood and watched from the courtyard (“pit”)
• All but wealthy were uneducated/illiterate
• Much more interaction than today
Actors• Only men and boys• Young boys whose voices
had not changed play women’s roles
• Would have been considered indecent for a woman to appear on stage
Shakespeare• 1563-1616• Stratford-on-Avon, England• wrote 37 plays• about 154 sonnets• started out as an actor
Stage Celebrity• Actor for Lord
Chamberlain’s Men (London theater co.)
• Also > principal playwright for them
• 1599> Lord Ch. Co. built Globe Theater where most of Sh. Play’s were performed
Film Activity – 20 Points
• After watching the following clip, describe the way in which the Elizabethan stage influences the play.
– Four sentences minimum…. well developed thoughts only.
Exit Slip
1. In what country was Elizabethan Theatre?2. Did they have professionals with permanent
buildings or traveling amateurs? 3. Did the Church support plays during this time
as positive influences on society?4. True or False: The most expensive seats were
closest to the stage.5. True or False: Women traditionally acted in
Elizabethan Theatre.