courtyard theatre

courtyard theatre, any temporary or permanent theatre structure established in an inn’s courtyard in England or a residential courtyard in Spain. Under Elizabeth I, many plays were performed in the courtyards of London inns, with the first-recorded innyard performance in 1557. By 1576 there were five courtyard theatres in London, but they declined thereafter, since by then London had two permanent theatres.

The structure of the Elizabethan playhouse was similar to that of the earlier innyard theatres. Actors performed on an open stage protruding from a rear wall, while spectators sat or stood on three sides of the platform, on ground level and in the “box seats” provided by surrounding windows. Although most of the courtyard stages were temporary booth stages on trestles or barrels, permanent stages and spectator stands were constructed in the courtyards of the Red Lion and Boar’s Head inns at Whitechapel in the 1560s.

The corrales of Spain were established in the courts surrounded by houses. Valladolid transformed a courtyard into a theatre by 1554, Barcelona by 1560, and Cordoba by 1565. By the 1570s Madrid had five corrales, which were controlled for 200 years by the monopoly of two rival cofradías, fraternities founded to aid the poor and to fund hospitals. The typical 16th-century corral had a wide stage that extended across a courtyard. In front of the stage and alongside the walls were raised seats. The audience occupying the rest of the courtyard stood, as in Elizabethan theatres. As in England, privileged spectators could observe the performances from windows of the surrounding houses. The cofradías either rented these rooms or allowed owners to pay for their exclusive rights to these seats. Theatrical performances escaped suppression because they funded these charitable organizations.