The Inconvenience of Stage Posts: Green World Locales at the Rose Theatre

A long-running debate surrounds the staging of ‘green worlds’ in early modern drama, with some commentators envisioning a bare stage while others believe that performances utilized multiple properties. One area of contention concerns the extent to which theatres used stage posts to represent trees. This article considers four plays (by Shakespeare, Munday, and Porter) performed at the Rose Theatre in the period 1594-8 and makes a case for the employment of various properties in forest scenes. Reference to the playhouse’s architecture after it was renovated in 1592, in particular the location of its stage posts, underpins the argument.