The stage of The Globe and other Elizabethan playhouses jutted out into the audience, allowing audience to stand and sit in tiered galleries on three sides of the action. Today, we call this a "thrust" stage, since the playing space is thrust into the audience. This allowed actors to continue the tradition of interacting with the audience, including them in the action of the play. Poorer patrons paid a penny to stand around the stage (these people were called "groundlings"), while more affluent people paid more to sit in the galleries surrounding the stage. Wealthy patrons could sit in chairs that were set up on stage right and left of the playing area.
Theater audiences in Shakespeare's day came from every walk of life. The summer season at the playhouse was immensely popular and the theater might, for a single performance, attract up to 3,000 people -- 1,500 seated inside the theater and 1,500 crowded around outside the venue. The atmosphere was raucous and full of high spirits, with food and drink sold by vendors who circulated throughout the theater during intervals. Audiences had no concept of the theatrical etiquette expected at today's performance such as "no talking." Elizabethan audiences were used to being included in the action of the play and did not hesitate to cheer for a hero or boo a villain. The most comparable public atmosphere in today's culture would be a sports event, where the audience feels free to eat, drink and comment on the action.
Elizabethan acting companies were comprised of a group of male players who performed together, season after season. Each actor had his "speciality" -- the leading men, the clowns, the old men, the comic rubes or the female characters, for example. Women were forbidden by law to perform in the public theaters during Shakespeare's day; therefore, beginning in their teens, certain male performers were trained to play the female parts. There were no stage directors, so actors were responsible for creating the stagings of the plays. They referred to the staging "clues" set down within the script by the playwright when deciding upon the action of the play.
Elizabethan audiences were thrilled to see visual effects and spectacle, so dramatic, eye-catching props were an important element in theater. The variety of weapons thrilled the audiences, and the fights in which these were used were dramatic and exciting to witness considering the proximity of the fights to the audience. Costumes were "modern," which means that they were always Elizabethan, regardless of the time the play was set. Audiences enjoyed the pageantry of the lavish colors and fabrics, especially the costumes for the play's royalty, since royal clothing was prohibited to "commoners" under normal circumstances. Special effects such as mysterious appearances and disappearances through trap doors in the stage's floor and ceiling added to the magical quality of certain performances.