After Lope de Vega died in 1635, “Calderón became the master of the Spanish stage” (Parker). Also, soon after Vega’s death then the new palace was complete and would soon house stunning productions being that it was where the court would revolve around. “When a new palace, Buen Retiro, was completed on the outskirts of Madrid in 1633, it became the center for court entertainments, which reached their high point during the reign of Phillip IV” (Gainor et al, pg. 44). This shifted some of the focus of theatre out of the main city and into the palace. The court followed to the new palace, as did all of the playwrights who worked within it. “Under the supervisor of Italian set designers who were brought to the Spanish court to oversee and engineer these performances, spectacular entertainments were staged both within the palace—a permanent theater, the Coliseo was constructed there in 1640—and outdoors on the palace grounds” (Gainor et al, pg. 44). This theatre gave the ability for more spectacular shows that the public theatres could not afford and did not have the physical ability to produce. Furthermore, with the theatre being in the palace at the center of the court, more spectacular shows were…show more content… He spent most of his life writing piece after piece. While the debate of how many pieces he actually wrote is ongoing, it can be said that he wrote hundreds if not reaching a thousand pieces over his life. The works that he left behind went on to shape Spanish theatre as a whole. Lope de Vega is definitely one of the most important playwrights of the Spanish Golden Age and of the greater whole of the history of drama itself. “Of many playwrights who contributed to the comedia nueva, none played a greater role in its development and success than Lope de Vega, a towering figure in Spanish Golden Age drama and one of the most prolific dramatists ever to write for the stage” (Gainor, pgs.
