Elizabethan Culture: Theatre and the Arts

Active learning works for Elizabethan culture because the period’s tensions—between art and authority, symbol and reality—come alive when students manipulate primary sources and role-play historical perspectives. Theatre and portraits become more than static artifacts when students interrogate them directly, grounding abstract ideas in concrete analysis.

• Year 8
• History
• 4 activities
• 35 min–50 min

Learning Objectives

1. Analyze how specific events and themes in Shakespeare's plays, such as Macbeth's ambition or Richard III's usurpation, mirrored contemporary anxieties about royal succession and political stability in Elizabethan England.
2. Explain the reasons for official suspicion towards public theatres, including concerns about public order, the spread of disease during plague outbreaks, and the potential for seditious content, citing specific historical examples.
3. Evaluate the use of symbolism in the 'Rainbow Portrait' of Elizabeth I, such as the serpent, peacock, and rainbow, to assess how it communicated messages of divine right, wisdom, and peace to its audience.
4. Compare and contrast the methods used by Shakespearean theatre and royal portraiture to convey political messages and shape public perception during the Elizabethan era.

Museum Exhibit

⏱ 35 min·Pairs

Source Analysis: Rainbow Portrait Stations

Display enlarged images of the portrait at stations with symbol cards. Pairs rotate, annotating one symbol per station and noting power messages. Groups share findings in a whole-class debrief.

Prepare & details

Analyze how Shakespeare's plays reflected the political concerns of the time.

Facilitation Tip: During the Rainbow Portrait Stations, circulate and ask students to read each other’s annotations aloud so they practice articulating symbolic meaning before writing.

Setup: Tables or desks arranged as exhibit stations around room

Materials: Exhibit planning template, Art supplies for artifact creation, Label/placard cards, Visitor feedback form

• Apply
• Analyze
• Create
• Self-Management
• Relationship Skills

Formal Debate

⏱ 45 min·Small Groups

Formal Debate: Theatre Suspicion Council Meeting

Divide class into privy council and theatre supporters. Small groups prepare 2-minute arguments using evidence on sedition fears. Hold a vote on theatre closures.

Prepare & details

Explain why the authorities viewed the theatre with suspicion.

Facilitation Tip: For the Theatre Suspicion Council Meeting, assign roles with clear objectives (e.g., Puritan leader, Globe owner, Queen’s advisor) to ensure balanced debate.

Setup: Two teams facing each other, audience seating for the rest

Materials: Debate proposition card, Research brief for each side, Judging rubric for audience, Timer

• Analyze
• Evaluate
• Create
• Self-Management
• Decision-Making

Museum Exhibit

⏱ 50 min·Small Groups

Performance: Shakespearean Political Excerpts

Assign short scenes from Julius Caesar or Macbeth to groups. Perform with modern adaptations, then discuss political parallels in Elizabethan context via sticky notes.

Prepare & details

Evaluate how the 'Rainbow Portrait' communicated Elizabeth's power.

Facilitation Tip: When students perform Shakespearean excerpts, provide glossaries for archaic terms and pause after key lines to ask, 'How might this line have been interpreted by Elizabeth’s government?'

Setup: Tables or desks arranged as exhibit stations around room

Materials: Exhibit planning template, Art supplies for artifact creation, Label/placard cards, Visitor feedback form

• Apply
• Analyze
• Create
• Self-Management
• Relationship Skills

Museum Exhibit

⏱ 40 min·Individual

Propaganda Poster Design: Elizabethan Style

Individuals study portrait features, then create a poster glorifying Elizabeth with symbols. Pairs peer-review for effectiveness before gallery walk.

Prepare & details

Analyze how Shakespeare's plays reflected the political concerns of the time.

Facilitation Tip: In the Propaganda Poster Design task, require students to include a legend explaining each symbol’s intended message to force clear reasoning.

Setup: Tables or desks arranged as exhibit stations around room

Materials: Exhibit planning template, Art supplies for artifact creation, Label/placard cards, Visitor feedback form

• Apply
• Analyze
• Create
• Self-Management
• Relationship Skills

Teaching This Topic

Teachers should treat Elizabethan theatre and art as contested spaces, not neutral objects. Avoid framing portraits or plays as simple reflections of the era; instead, emphasize their coded language and strategic ambiguity. Research shows students grasp propaganda best when they create it, so design tasks that force them to make choices about symbolism rather than passively observe it.

What to Expect

Successful learning looks like students confidently connecting symbols in portraits to political messages, citing specific lines from plays to support claims about sedition, and justifying council decisions with evidence from Puritan critiques. Discussions should reference primary sources without prompting.

Watch Out for These Misconceptions

Common Misconception

During the Performance: Shakespearean Political Excerpts, students may assume Shakespeare’s plays were just entertainment, ignoring their political layers.

What to Teach Instead

During the Performance: Shakespearean Political Excerpts, ask groups to pause after each excerpt and identify one line that could be interpreted as critical of Elizabeth’s rule or supportive of her authority, then defend their choice using the text.

Common Misconception

During the Theatre Suspicion Council Meeting, students may believe theatres faced no restrictions, viewing them as universally accepted.

What to Teach Instead

During the Theatre Suspicion Council Meeting, provide each council member with a prepared argument packet that includes plague records, Puritan pamphlets, and royal proclamations to ensure they cite specific restrictions in their debate.

Common Misconception

During the Source Analysis: Rainbow Portrait Stations, students might assume royal portraits showed accurate likenesses rather than propaganda.

What to Teach Instead

During the Source Analysis: Rainbow Portrait Stations, require students to compare the Rainbow Portrait to a contemporary portrait of an unknown noble, then explain why Elizabeth’s portrait includes the serpent and rainbow while the noble’s does not.

Assessment Ideas

Exit Ticket

After the Performance: Shakespearean Political Excerpts, give each student a card with a line from one of the performed excerpts or a symbol from a portrait. Students write one sentence explaining its political meaning and one sentence connecting it to Elizabethan anxieties or her power.

Discussion Prompt

After the Theatre Suspicion Council Meeting, pose the question: 'If you were a town official in 1590, would you allow a theatre troupe to perform in your town? Why or why not?' Students should use evidence from the debate, including Puritan critiques and plague records, to support their views.

Quick Check

During the Source Analysis: Rainbow Portrait Stations, show students two Elizabethan royal portraits side by side. Ask them to identify one symbol in each and explain the intended message about the Queen’s authority, using the annotations they created at the stations.

Extensions & Scaffolding

• Challenge: Ask students to find a modern political portrait or campaign poster and annotate it using the same symbolism framework applied to the Rainbow Portrait.
• Scaffolding: Provide sentence stems for the Propaganda Poster Design task, such as 'This symbol represents ____ because ____ and it targets ____ by ____'.
• Deeper exploration: Have students research how Shakespeare’s plays were censored or altered in performance during Elizabeth’s reign and compare those edits to modern adaptations that change political implications.

Key Vocabulary

Regicide	The act of killing a king or queen. This was a significant fear during Elizabeth I's reign due to past events and potential threats.
Sedition	Conduct or speech inciting people to rebel against the authority of a state or monarch. Authorities feared theatres could be a platform for such activities.
Propaganda	Information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view. Royal portraits served this function.
Divine Right of Kings	The belief that a monarch is subject to no earthly authority, deriving their right to rule directly from God. This concept was central to royal portraiture.
Puritanism	A religious reform movement within the Church of England. Puritans often viewed the theatre as immoral and a source of social disorder.