Social

Shakespeare's audience and how he created a relationship with them

• Shakespeare never wrote for a particular social group, he commented on all of them

• As Shakespeare's audience didn't have the technology we have now to create the scene, the lighting, setting etc, he had to help his audience along, through his descriptive language and monologues within his plays

• Shakespeare's audience were mostly illiterate with very little or no teaching. This meant that Shakespeare's plays were probably the only piece of literature they would have seen or heard. He not only had to appeal to those who would not necessarily understand major ideas or themes but he also had to appeal to the more educated people who would understand the major themes or ideas

• His plays had the excitement and action, for the uneducated audience members, and deeper meanings and comments, for the educated audience members

• Shakespeare's plays were enjoyable for all social classes and all types of people to watch

How Shakespearean actors were perceived in his time

Shakespearean actors on stage

• Early Elizabethan actors were not well perceived in the social ranks. They were not trusted and were viewed as "rogues or vagabonds"

• As time went on Elizabethan actors popularity increased dramatically, people started to come to the theatre more and some actors even became stake holders in theatres, became wealthy men and mixed with the upper classes

• Some actors even played to Royalty, rather like Bottom and Quince in A Midsummer's Night's Dream

• Women were not allowed to act until 1660, teenage boys took the female roles in the plays

• It's interesting to see how actors were perceived and how those perceptions and attitudes towards them changed