MEDLEVAL AND MODERN. During the Middle Ages theatrical performances consisted almost wholly of religious or semi-religious allegories, known as Mysteries and Miracle Plays, which were given in churches, convents, or castle halls and without any elaborate staging. When per formed out of doors at fairs, a rude booth of boards sufficed. No seats were provided for the spectators. in 1548 the Paris Confraternity of the Trinity built a theatre which was licensed to perform "profane pieces of a lawful and hon est character." There were no seats or scenery. Until the end of the sixteenth century theatrical performances were given in England by bands of strolling players who had no permanent theatres, hut performed chiefly at fairs and in the court yards of inns, the most honored guests watching the performance from the second or third story windows and balconies, an arrangement that may have suggested the different tiers of balconies in the modern theatre. The first permanent play house in London was the theatre built by James Burbage about 1576. The Globe Theatre, built in 1598, also by Burbage, in which Shakespeare's plays were produced, was an hexagonal wooden structure partly open at the top. In the central court, or pit, the people stood, while the gentry sat in galleries running around three sides of the building, and a number of wits and gallants sat upon the stage, which was concealed between the acts by a curtain running upon an iron rod. Shakespeare had no scenery beyond hangings and curtains, a placard inscribed "This is a Forest," or "This is a Prison," sufficing. :Movable scenery first made its appearance about 1650. Perform ances were given in the afternoon, except upon special occasions, when candles were used and kept sniffled by men who were duly applauded fur their dexterity in keeping the lights properly trimmed. The first French theatres were modeled after those of Italy, where theatres were built about 1680 in Florence and Vicenza. The first ballets performed tinder Louis T1 V. were organ ized by Italians, who introduced movable scen ery, footlights, and sidelights. For Italian bal lets introduced into France in 1680, scenery painted in proper perspective was first used, and women were admitted among the dancers, the female parts having been taken before that by boys. In 1759 the chief Paris theatres abolished the privilege of the gallants to sit upon the stage, and the London theatres followed their example.
1n Paris the custom had been so abused that the actors in popular plays had no room; in a play by Favart at the Thatre Francais in 1740, such was the crowd that there was only room on the stage for one actor to appear at a time. About 1660 women first appeared upon the English stage, where their parts had until then been played by boys o• young men. ]n 1700 scenery began to be painted upon different flats running upon grooves in the stage, France leading the way in stage decoration, with such famous artists as Watteau and Boucher as scene painters. Dur ing the nineteenth century the pit, which formerly contained no seats and was used by the common people and by lackeys waiting for their masters, changed its name and character. Both in Europe and America the former pit, now known as the orchestra, is filled with seats which are, with a few exceptions, the most expensive in the theatre, while the cheapest places are now in the top galleries.
According to Dunlap the first American theatre was built in Williamsburg, Va., in 1752 by the English actor William Hallam, who brought a company from England and was for years the chief spirit in theatrical enterprises in the New World. The first play produced was The Mer chant of Venice. About the same time a brick theatre, with seats for about 600 persons, is said to have been built in Annapolis. The first New York theatre was opened by Hallam in Septem ber, 1753, in Nassau Street, upon the site of an old Dutch church. Plays were given three times a week. At the end of the season Hallam moved to Philadelphia, where in April, 1754, he fitted up a building near Pine Street and gave dramatic performances. An actor named Douglass built a theatre in 1754 near Old Slip, in New York, which he called the Histrionic Academy, opening with Jane Shore, and five years later he was also the proprietor of a Philadelphia house. In 1759 Newport had its theatre and in the following year one was built in Perth Amboy, then the capital of the Province of New Jersey; the same company played engagements in New York, Philadelphia, Newport, and Perth Amboy. In 1757 another theatre was built in .1ohn Street, New Yo•k. In 1773 Charleston and Boston had their own theatres, and by the end of the century there were others in Albany. Baltimore, and Rich mond.