Gender Roles In Shakespeare's Plays

There are many reasons why boys would play the female roles throughout the 1800s during Shakespeare's influence over the theatre. Young boys would often play the parts of women in Shakespeare plays and an entrance into an acting career. Often there would be only around 4 actors performing in one production at a time therefore multi rolling was common and each actor had to be versatile. Audience members gave positive impressions of the quality of the acting of boy players.

The scant serving evidence states that actors would often all be all males in their teens, this would be because they hadn't yet reached adulthood therefore could play more convincing females. Also there was a higher ratio of boys to girls in the plays therefore indicating