Elizabethan Public Playhouse

Timeline

1. 1561–1565Inn yards in and around the City of London · LondonElizabeth I granted patronage patents to nobles such as the Lord Chamberlain over acting companies, enabling professional troupes to erect stages and sell tickets in inn yards in and around London, creating a pattern of secular theatrical consumption aimed at citizens and apprentices; the spatial and commercial logic of the public playhouse took root from this.
2. 1567–1570The Red Lion (Whitechapel Road) · LondonThe Red Lion is regarded as England's first fixed site purpose-built for drama, with wooden galleries and a stage; though short-lived and crudely built, it demonstrated the feasibility of moving beyond inn yards and using a theater building to accommodate large paying audiences.
3. 1568–1570Outside the walls in Shoreditch and Southwark · LondonBy around 1570, acting companies and theater operators had come to favor sites outside London's walls in Shoreditch, Southwark, and elsewhere, avoiding the pressure of city guilds and Puritans; this spatial strategy paved the way for James Burbage's construction of 'The Theatre' in 1576 and the subsequent era of the Globe.