A Note For Theater Groups

Why not enact a play that has not been seen on a stage in more than three centuries?

On this web-site you will find Elizabethan plays that have rarely been published, never mind performed, since the early 17th century, or even earlier. They include hilarious comedies, violent tragedies, and great romances, and most of them actually comprise elements of all of the above. Most importantly, the plays include sublime poetry and language that is among the finest ever written in the English language. These playwrights had to be good; after all, most of them either directly competed with, or wrote in the shadow of, William Shakespeare.

The best part is, annotations of the plays appear right next to the lines they are helping to interpret, so that your actors can quickly and easily come to understand the emotions, the language, the jokes, the literary and mythological allusions, and the relationships between the characters to an extent never before possible with these ancient dramas.

What if the members of your audience also took a few hours to read and understand the plays before they came to watch your show? You would have a crowd that would rival the original audiences of 400 years ago in their appreciation and understanding of your performance.

This is exciting. If any of you anywhere in the world ever decides to put on one of the plays from this website, drop me a line at Peter@ElizabethanDrama.org.