Antemasque (theatre)

An antemasque is a theatrical performance often played before a masque. The concept of the antemasque, or anti-masque, was conceived by Ben Johnson. Antemasques commonly employed professional performers, rather than the gentleman amateurs of the main masque, and often comic subject matter could be either related or unrelated to the subject of the main masque.^[1] Masques originally usually had one antemasque before the main masque, but later it became common to have several antemasques preceding the main masque.^[2][3]

References

1. Eras of the dance: the George Verdak Collection, Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, Huntsville Museum of Art - 1976 "The antemasque was an innovation by Jonson which introduced the grotesque or antic element to the performance which preceded the masque proper. The antemasque differed from the masque in that it was performed by professionals .."
2. Thomas Middleton: The Collected Works 2010 p.1324 0199580537 "Earlier masques usually had one antemasque, which preceded the main masque, but later it became common for the masques to have several antemasques."
3. Mara R. Wade Gender Matters: Discourses of Violence in Early Modern Literature 9401210233 - 2013 "This moment, along with the antemasque's inclusion of the marriage god Hymen, recalls Ben Jonson's The Masque of Hymen (1606), in which Juno and eight ladies descend from above. Bianca adopts another common feature of Jonson's ..."