ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the distinctive development of professional theatre in France and Spain as they are representative of the trends throughout Europe. The Early Modern period in Western history begins in the late fifteenth-century, where the periods traditionally called the Late Middle Ages and Renaissance overlapped. It was also at this juncture that the first purpose-built theatre buildings to be erected in Europe since Roman times were constructed in the Italian States, England, France, and Spain. Neoclassicism was part of the classical revival movement in Italy and its precise logic and attention to rules had great appeal for those coming out of the chaos of the Wars of Religion. It is important here because its semiofficial adoption by the French Academy also led the French to embrace the Italian Renaissance approach to theatre architecture. Those who designed theatre buildings for these new professionals had to accommodate the new hybrid approaches to staging that were being created.
