15th and 16th Century Theater
By: Michael Kardos
15th-16th Century Spanish Theater
- The use of character types is common, as there were subjects like honor, love, patriotism, and religion
- Until about 1615, every performance involved monologues, songs, dances, and short sketches to keep the audience entertained
- Many plays used polymetry, the use of different meters to fit characters and situations within one work, and historical events when writing plays
15th-16th Century French Theater
- A group of seven French poets, known collectively as the Pleiade began to new grammatical rules and words which influenced the theater in the region
- Theater was academic and theatrical schools such as the School of Fontainebleau, which valued the artistic and literary movements that were taking place
- Before the study of plays began, amature performances of many works were common
Early American Theater
- The mixing of practices, along with the fact that most American cultures were illiterate, makes it impossible for scholars to determine what native american performance traditions were like
- Friars wrote autos in the native language and utilized other native elements in an effort to convert Americans to Christianity
- Christian elements as well as influences from African slaves were present in American theater as early as the mid sixteenth century