ABSTRACT
Between the 1560s and the 1630s, London witnessed the rise of some fifteen theatres. As well as these purpose-built theatres, a number of pre-existing halls and inns were converted for the public staging of plays and these existed alongside other places of recreation such as bull- and bear-baiting arenas, cock-fighting pits and inns in whose courtyards plays were occasionally performed. By the end of the sixteenth century, London had become a city in rapid transition, experiencing transformations that were for the most part the outcome of unprecedented and accelerating economic change. The theatres in which the plays were first performed owed their development not only to remarkable confluence of dramatic tradition, intellectual energy and commercial enterprise, but also to the developments in building skills which allowed structures to be designed specifically for theatrical entertainment. The intimate connection between institutions of society and the dramatic representations of the tensions which they produced on contemporary stage was not lost on the authorities.
