playgoer

This collaborative, participatory picture of theater inhibits the emergence of a playgoing public: a separate, identifiable (and therefore "public") group of people who understood themselves to be aficionados of theater, the kind of people that we now call "playgoers." (7) Andrew Gurr forwarded the term "playgoer" in 1988 to encompass (and to avoid choosing among) the period's own range of terms, including "spectator" and "audience." The term helpfully avoids conceptualizing those who attend a play as either a homogenous group of credulous gawkers or a heterogeneous group of judicious listeners.

The playwright's inspirational use of Ortelius's Theatrum OrbisTerrarum essentially sees Marlowe indulging imaginatively with exotic landscapes, an intoxicating experience he shares with his playgoers.

Or would a playgoer who sees Malvolio enter, while at the same time hearing Olivia talk of her own malady, be more likely to see an analogy between the two instances of comic madness or self-delusion?

The image of the reader in playbook prefaces is more positive than many contemporary images of playgoers. The prefaces show respect for the discernment readers exercise in their liberty to construct meaning and to judge quality.

Playgoers and readers alike rarely pause to consider this coat of Cassio's.

As well as putting up with shenanigans in the pit, especially when students were present, the serious playgoer also had to endure the inconsiderate behaviour of the wealthier clientele that was generally more concerned to flaunt its superiority than to watch the show, even if that involved blocking other people's view of the stage with monstrous hats.

Jyl Shuler, development director at the festival, is quick to point out two things about the festival, however, that may not be evident to the average playgoer. First, the festival is, and always has been, financially solvent.

A suggestion of Henry's concerning the duel he and Williams are to fight might cause a playgoer to believe he regards Williams as more than a commoner.

(13.) Andrew Gurr claims that the "strongest material basis for assuming" a higher class of playgoer at the Blackfriars is "the price of admission" (Playgoing in Shakespeare's London [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987]), 75.

Margaret Cavendish, who was the first to publish a critical essay on Shakespeare, is described as the first female critic of Shakespeare, while Elizabeth Pepys's attendance at the theatre is treated as exemplary of the importance of the female playgoer's response.