Shakespeare's Theatre

Excerpt from the travel journal of Thomas Platter, 1599 (see sources here and here):

On the 21St of September, after the mid-day meal, about two o'clock, I and my company went over the water [i.e. across the Thames] and saw in the house with the thatched roof [in dem streuwinen Dachhaus] the tragedy of the first Emperor Julius Caesar quite aptly performed. At the end of the play according to their custom they danced quite exceedingly finely, two got up in men's clothing and two in women's [dancing] wonderfully together.

At another time, not far from our inn in the suburbs, at Bishopsgate according to my memory, again after lunch, I saw a play where they presented different nations with which each time an Englishman struggled over a young woman, and overcame them all, with the exception of the German who won the girl in a struggle, sat down beside her, and drank himself tipsy with his servant, so that the two were both drunk, and the servant threw a shoe at his master's head, and both fell asleep. In the meantime the Englishman crept into the tent, and carried off the German's prize, and thus outwitted the German in turn. In conclusion they danced in English and Irish fashion quite skilfully. And so every day at two o'clock in the afternoon in the city of London sometimes two sometimes three plays are given in different places, which compete with each other and those which perform best have the largest number of listeners. The [playing places are so constructed that [the actors] play on a raised scaffold, and everyone can see everything. However there are different areas and galleries where one can sit more comfortably and better, and where one accordingly pays more. Thus whoever wants to stand below pays only one English penny, but if he wishes to sit, he enters through another door where he gives a further penny, but if he wants to sit in the most comfortable place on a cushion, where he will not only see everything but also be seen, he gives at another door a further English penny. And during each play things to eat and drink are brought round among the people, of which one may partake for whatever one cares to pay.

The actors are dressed in a very expensive and splendid fashion, since it is the custom in England when notable lords or knights die they bequeath and leave their servants almost the finest of their clothes which, because it is not fitting for them to wear such clothes, they offer [them] for purchase to the actors for a small sum of money.

How much time they can happily spend each day at the play, everyone knows who has seen them act or perform.

["The transcription of the original German given here is taken from E.K. Chambers, The Elizabethan Stage, II, PP. 364-5. A less literal translation than the one offered here may be found in Peter Razzell, The Journals of Two Travellers in Elizabethan and Early Stuart England: Thomas Platter and Horatio Busino (London, 1995), PP. 166-7."]

Ever since, Platter's casual comments, (and indeed he had more to say about Elizabethan playhouses, see Appendix II to "Building a Piece of History: The Story of the New Globe Theatre" by Zachary T. Oser, for an expanded quote, taken from Chambers), have been famous.
Lee, Sidney. Shakespeare and the Modern Stage, With Other Essays. New York: C. Scribner's Sons, 1906, from Google Book Search, full view and PDF, 251 pages.
Shakespeare and the Liberties by Steven Mullaney in The Encyclopaedia Britannica's Guide to Shakespeare.
Chambers, E. K. Notes on the History of the Revels Office Under the Tudors, A. H. Bullen, 1906, from Google Book Search, full view and PDF, 80 pages.
Gildersleeve, V. C. Government Regulation of Elizabethan Drama, Columbia University Press, 1908, from Google Book Search, full view and PDF, 259 pages.
Adams, Joseph Quincy. Shakespearean Playhouses; A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co, 1917; from Google Book Search, full view and PDF. The work is also available from the Internet Archive.
Henslowe's Diary, ed. W. W. Greg, A. H. Bullen, 1904. This is the most important textual artifact on plays, players and play houses to survive from the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras, and is available in full-text and PDF formats from Google Book Search.
Henslowe's Diary, Part II, Commentary, by Walter W. Greg, A. H. Bullen, 1908, from Google Book Search, full view and PDF, 400 pages.

Chambers, E. K. The Mediaeval Stage Vol I (1903), from Internet Archive.
Chambers, E. K. The Mediaeval Stage Vol II (1903), from Internet Archive.
Chambers, E. K. The English-Folk Play (1933), from Internet Archive.
Thorndike, A. H. Shakespeare's Theatre, 1916, from Google Book Search, full view and PDF.