Audience Responses and Playhouse Epilogues: Staging the Labour of Early Commercial Drama, 1578 – 1625
In the final moments of a play, between its conclusion and the judgement it receives, early modern playing companies deployed the epilogue as a device to elicit and consolidate a positive response from its audience. As theatre became a commercial enterprise with the construction of the first permane...
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| Format: | Thesis (University of Nottingham only) |
| Language: | English English |
| Published: |
2023
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/73898/ |
| _version_ | 1848800822856515584 |
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| author | Caldicott, Joshua Merlin |
| author_facet | Caldicott, Joshua Merlin |
| author_sort | Caldicott, Joshua Merlin |
| building | Nottingham Research Data Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | In the final moments of a play, between its conclusion and the judgement it receives, early modern playing companies deployed the epilogue as a device to elicit and consolidate a positive response from its audience. As theatre became a commercial enterprise with the construction of the first permanent playhouses, positive audience responses became crucial to ensuring continued custom through repeat attendance or the encouragement of others to attend. Following the extensive collation and analysis of all 119 extant epilogue texts from 1578 to 1625, this thesis presents the most thorough understanding to date of what occurs during the liminal moment of transition between the play-world and the world of a judging audience. The direct and immediate appeals made by the epilogue to the audience offer an insight into the ways in which audiences engaged with drama, revealing how they made meaning from the plays presented to them, how they expressed their opinions about these plays, and what was at risk when they disapproved of the theatre company’s offerings. This thesis further argues that audiences were courted through revelation of the major forms of labour undertaken by the theatre company, including acting and writing, as well as exploring the work that went into the subsequent printing of the extant epilogues. In doing so, this thesis identifies how theatrical labour was either presented or concealed, in order to present a cohesive image of the work of theatre-making for the audience’s approval. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-14T20:57:40Z |
| format | Thesis (University of Nottingham only) |
| id | nottingham-73898 |
| institution | University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus |
| institution_category | Local University |
| language | English English |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-14T20:57:40Z |
| publishDate | 2023 |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | nottingham-738982025-06-10T08:14:19Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/73898/ Audience Responses and Playhouse Epilogues: Staging the Labour of Early Commercial Drama, 1578 – 1625 Caldicott, Joshua Merlin In the final moments of a play, between its conclusion and the judgement it receives, early modern playing companies deployed the epilogue as a device to elicit and consolidate a positive response from its audience. As theatre became a commercial enterprise with the construction of the first permanent playhouses, positive audience responses became crucial to ensuring continued custom through repeat attendance or the encouragement of others to attend. Following the extensive collation and analysis of all 119 extant epilogue texts from 1578 to 1625, this thesis presents the most thorough understanding to date of what occurs during the liminal moment of transition between the play-world and the world of a judging audience. The direct and immediate appeals made by the epilogue to the audience offer an insight into the ways in which audiences engaged with drama, revealing how they made meaning from the plays presented to them, how they expressed their opinions about these plays, and what was at risk when they disapproved of the theatre company’s offerings. This thesis further argues that audiences were courted through revelation of the major forms of labour undertaken by the theatre company, including acting and writing, as well as exploring the work that went into the subsequent printing of the extant epilogues. In doing so, this thesis identifies how theatrical labour was either presented or concealed, in order to present a cohesive image of the work of theatre-making for the audience’s approval. 2023-07-20 Thesis (University of Nottingham only) NonPeerReviewed application/pdf en cc_by https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/73898/2/Redacted%20Version%20-%20Joshua%20Caldicott%20-%20Audience%20Responses%20and%20Playhouse%20Epilogues%20Staging%20the%20Labour%20of%20Early%20Commercial%20Drama%201578-1625.pdf application/pdf en arr https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/73898/1/Joshua%20Caldicott%20-%20Audience%20Responses%20and%20Playhouse%20Epilogues%20Staging%20the%20Labour%20of%20Early%20Commercial%20Drama%201578-1625.pdf Caldicott, Joshua Merlin (2023) Audience Responses and Playhouse Epilogues: Staging the Labour of Early Commercial Drama, 1578 – 1625. PhD thesis, University of Nottingham. theatre epilogues early modern drama audience response Ben Jonson William Shakespeare John Fletcher |
| spellingShingle | theatre epilogues early modern drama audience response Ben Jonson William Shakespeare John Fletcher Caldicott, Joshua Merlin Audience Responses and Playhouse Epilogues: Staging the Labour of Early Commercial Drama, 1578 – 1625 |
| title | Audience Responses and Playhouse Epilogues: Staging the Labour of Early Commercial Drama, 1578 – 1625 |
| title_full | Audience Responses and Playhouse Epilogues: Staging the Labour of Early Commercial Drama, 1578 – 1625 |
| title_fullStr | Audience Responses and Playhouse Epilogues: Staging the Labour of Early Commercial Drama, 1578 – 1625 |
| title_full_unstemmed | Audience Responses and Playhouse Epilogues: Staging the Labour of Early Commercial Drama, 1578 – 1625 |
| title_short | Audience Responses and Playhouse Epilogues: Staging the Labour of Early Commercial Drama, 1578 – 1625 |
| title_sort | audience responses and playhouse epilogues: staging the labour of early commercial drama, 1578 – 1625 |
| topic | theatre epilogues early modern drama audience response Ben Jonson William Shakespeare John Fletcher |
| url | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/73898/ |