Welcome to the History of English Podcast, a podcast about the history of the English language.

This is episode 176, All the Worlds of Playhouse.

This time we're going to look at how the theater shaped the English language.

And when I say the theater, I mean the actual playhouses used to present dramas.

We're going to look beyond the plays themselves to the venues where they were performed.

People flocked to those playhouses during the Elizabethan period, and they were an important part of cultural life at the time.

Theaters were such an integral part of Elizabethan England that the venues themselves contributed

words that survived to this day.

And those words joined thousands of other words that were pouring into English from around the

world.

So this time we'll also look at how distant cultures were contributing to the growth of English during this period.

But before we begin, let me remind you that the website for the podcast is History of English Podcast.com and you can sign up to

support the podcast and get bonus episodes at patreon.com slash history of

English. Now this time I want to continue our look at Elizabethan Drama but I want to

expand the scope of that

the discussion to include the important role of the actual playhouses that were used at the time.

When many of us think about this period of history,

we can't help but think about William Shakespeare

and the important role of the theater in the daily life of Londoners.

It all began with the construction of the first permanent theatre just north of the city limits in the 1570s.

That first playhouse was simply called The Theater.

And from there, English drama quickly emerged

...