Props,set+and+costume

In Shakespeare's time, people were very conscious of the latest fashions, and also of the social conventions behind clothes. So costumes were an important way for the actors on Shakespeare's plays to convey information about the characters that they were playing. Some actors would play two different characters in the plays so they would use costumed to distinguish between the different characters.

There were also other ways of using costumes to say things about characters. The colour of their clothes was symbolically important. For example black would be seen as a dark, evil or mourning charature. White was associated with purity and yellow was a colour associated with lovers. Costumes were not used realistically in Shakespeare's theater. Acotrs playing lords or layers or soliers or serv ants, for example, would have worn costumes that would have made their status instantly recognizable. Costumes would also be used to portray the characters' nationality.

Shakespeare's plays were performed on a bare stage, with no scenery. sometimes the scene would use sound effects or the charatures might wear costumes which revealed their nationality. sometimes the location might be signalled by the actors' skills.

Because in all of Shakespeare's plays, only men acted, men had to dress up as woman for the woman roles.

Like costumes, props were important assets for the theater companies. Most of the props that the companies possessed were small, portable objects, that were easy to store and could be carried on stage by the actors as the companies didn't want to hire stagehands.

So a company might have a lot of swords, shields, pieces or armor, and so on which would be useful for a wide variety of plays. But the company might also have a few larger props and that might be specific to just one or two of the plays.But their selection of props would have been fairly limited.