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The presence of playgoers on the indoor or private theatre stages is indicated in numerous contemporary anecdotes and generally accepted (although rarely considered in discussions of early modern staging), but the less plentiful evidence of playgoers sitting on the outdoor stages has, I believe, been largely neglected. (1) In particular, there are three main sources of evidence about playgoers sitting on outdoor stages: plays, non-dramatic works, and legal documents. The legal evidence is rarely cited and nowhere have all three kinds been brought together. The aim of this study is to present that evidence, some of it oblique and inferential, but some quite explicit in referring to playgoers on the stages of public playhouses. References to playgoers sitting on the stage are typically found in contemporary texts critical of their disruptive behaviour. The earliest of these occurs in Sir John Davies's Epigrammes and Elegies, written as early as 1594-5 (2): 3: Rufus the Courtier at the theatre, Leauing the best and most conspicuous place, Doth either to the stage himselfe transfer, Or through the grate doth shew his doubtfull face. For that the clamorous frie of Innes of court, Filles vp the priuate roomes of greater prise: And such place where all may haue resort, He in his singularitie doth despise. (sig. A4r) 28: He that dares take Tobaco on the stage, Dares man whore at noon-day through the street Dares daunce in Poules, and in this formall age, Dares say and doe what euer is vnmeete.... (sig. C2r) Ben Jonson likewise conveys his displeasure in Every Man Out of His Humour, Chamberlain's Men's of 1599 (published 1600), when Carlo Buffone advises Sogliardo that to be a gentleman of the time he must sit on the stage and flout, provided you have good suit (sig. C4r). This idea is then picked up when Fastidious Brisk includes among the strange virtues of rich apparel that it takes possession of the stage at your new play (sig. G4v). While one might assume that Davies and Jonson were referring to gallants on stage at an indoor playhouse, in fact neither of the known pre1600 indoor venues, Paul's and Blackfriars, was in operation between 1590 and 1599. (3) There were, however, at least five outdoor venues in business during this period: the Theatre, Boar's Head, Curtain/Globe, Swan, and Rose for which Berry provides more detail. Both sets of comments therefore indicate that gallants watched performances from one or more amphitheatre stages during the 1590s and, furthermore, that the practice did not begin at the Blackfriars where it eventually became most common. (4) The first explicit indication of stage-sitting at outdoor playhouses is found in Thomas Middleton's The Black Book, with the reference to Barnaby Burning-glass, arch-tobacco-taker of England, in ordinaries, upon stages both common and private, and lastly, in the lodging of your drab and mistress (sig. F2r). Middleton's mention of the practice at both kinds of theatres is expanded with specific details by Thomas Dekker in The Gull's Hornbook. (5) In chapter six, How Gallant should behaue himselfe in Playhouse, Dekker's topical references and allusions signal that he means to be taken literally when near the start he establishes both indoor and outdoor theatres as the context for his extended and detailed satire: Whether therefore the gatherers of the publique or priuate Play-house stand to receiue the afternoones rent, let our Gallant (hauing paid it) presently aduance himselfe vp to the Throne of the Stage. I meane not into the Lords roome, (which is now but the Stages Suburbs) No, those boxes by the iniquity of custome, conspiracy of waiting-women and Gentlemen-Ushers, that there sweat together, and the couetousnes of Sharers, are contemptibly thrust into the reare, and much new Satten is there dambd by being smothred to death in darknesse. …
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