Introduction

The introduction seeks to establish the fundamental alterity of the early modern playgoing experience. Sixteenth- and seventeenth-century audiences were much more rambunctious, unruly and reactive than the quiet, passive, polite theater crowds we are used to. This study then tries to foreground the alterity of early modern audiences and show how playwrights handled those playgoers’ unruly responses to drama, and concludes that much of the dramaturgy of Renaissance playwrights was dedicated to controlling those unruly responses.