| This study examines the development of commercial theater in important urban locations of the Spanish Empire during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and compares them with their English counterparts. Based on manuscript and printed sources, it argues that the Spanish theaters developed into a well-entrenched and exportable system of public drama through their financial relationship to hospitals in those cities. Unlike in cities in the Anglo-Atlantic, this meant that theater was centrally integrated into the physical space of cities in Spain and its colonies. This relationship also gave Spanish public playhouses an upper hand when dealing with anti-theatrical moralizers.;Additionally this study examines the impact that various groups had on the development of Renaissance theaters. Actors, playwrights, troupe directors, hospital administrators, actresses, and audience members, as well as imperial, local, and religious authorities, played a role in the creation of the most productive and most attended public drama of the early modern period. |
