Staging Shakespeare

My group is working on staging a scene from our lost play  so I decided to research more about the subject (our group hasn't had theater experience). Here are some things I found that could help everyone with their plays.

http://www.folger.edu/template.cfm?cid=963

Scene Changes with No Curtain
In Shakespeare's time there wasn't a curtain to drop between scenes.  To signal a scene or location change, all the characters would exit the stage and you would have different characters enter to begin the scene. In some cases when the characters remained on stag,e such as in Romeo and Juliet Act 1 scene 4 to scene 5(move from street to Capulet house), dialogue or stage actions made the change of location obvious.


Props and dialog were a big deal in Shakespeare's day. They were used to specify where the setting of the action because the playhouses didn't use movable scenery to make the set precise.  They did however use stage props such as rocks or banquet tables etc.


Actors would sometimes leave the stage as part of the performance. like the Ghost in Hamlet who appears beneath the stage. They used things like trapdoors or used building fixtures to stage things like the balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet. The stage was also provided with rjpes and winches so that actors coudl descend from , and reascend to the "heavens".