Back to Show
Crash Course Theater
Shakespeare's Tragedies and an Acting Lesson
Season 1
Episode 15
Shakespeare's tragedies...were tragic. But they had some jokes. They also changed the way tragedies were written. Characters like Hamlet, Macbeth, and King Lear had tragic outcomes, but they were sympathetic characters in a lot of ways. This was a big change from the way Seneca and the Greeks wrote tragedies, and it caught on.
Support Provided By

10:40
Spain was having kind of a moment in the 16th and 17th centuries.

12:54
In the 1600s, English theater had to go into hiding, from PURITANS. Enter: WOMEN.

11:50
Thanks, Shakespeare! Let's talk about Ben Jonson, revenge tragedies, and court masques.

10:46
Let's take a look at Shakespeare's comedies, romances, problem plays and heroines.

10:52
How a young Shakespeare stormed into London's theater – and wrote some pretty good plays.

12:17
Let's take a look at London theater and the playwrights who set the stage for Shakespeare.

10:43
Painting, music, architecture, and plays with fart jokes were all thriving from 1300-1500.

12:20
Noh, and its counterpart Kyogen are some of the most revered theater forms in Japan.

11:10
After European churches changed their minds on theater, drama became an outdoor activity.

11:01
Meet Hrotsvitha: a cool, 10th century nun/playwright who influenced a new era of theater.

11:59
As Christianity rose in the west, theater declined. But it returned – via Catholic Mass!

12:02
Thanks to Bharata Muni, we can tell you quite a bit about Ancient Sanskrit theater.