All sorts of people went to the theatre, as it was relatively inexpensive, with the lowest priced seats being around a penny. There was a different attitude to the theatre then than there is now, people would often turn up drunk, or late and it was not uncommon for audience members to pelt the audience with apples if the disliked them.
There wasn"t any scenery as such, but plenty of props- some simple, but others quite elaborate. These were to create a specific setting, e.g. a tree would be used to create the forest in "A Midsummer Nights Dream".
Costumes in Shakespearean time were extremely elaborate, with a huge attention to detail. However, they were stock costumes, e.g. if you were to play Helena in "A Midsummer Nights Dream" and the Juliet for the same company, chances are you would be wearing the same costume both times.
However, costumes were all very contemporary to the time, and no effort was made to recreate historical accuracy.
My main design concept for the play is based on the game of chess. This was originally because of the hierarchical nature of the game, which reflects Elizabethan society, and also because of the two clear cut sides of the game- like the two sides in the play- the Athenian world, and the fairy world.
However, when I began to research the game, I realized that the theme was more suitable than I first thought.
For example, in the game of chess, and piece can, theoretically, become a king or queen, and I felt this reflected the mechanicals, namely Bottoms" ideas that they are better than they actually are, and that they can become something much more.
I also felt that the way some of the pieces move reflected the characters nature, e.g. the sneaky movement of the Knight (1 up and 2 across, or vice versa) reflects the mischievous nature of Puck.
I did toy with the idea of, from a directorial point of view, having the characters moving in the fashion which the chess pieces move in, but realized this was far to restricting, and would create rather boring theatre in practice.
