Elizabethan Age generally is considered to have been the Golden Age of the English theater, because Elizabeth encouraged so many artists to continue with their works and was a patron in terms of providing economic support. In addition to Shakespeare, other contemporaneous writers include Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Kyd, and Ben Jonson, among others.

Another reason that Elizabeth was a great patron of the theater was that she did not reject the arts for religious or ideological reasons. She had witnessed tremendous strife in her lifetime. Her mother was beheaded shortly after her own birth, and she was subject to the changing attitudes towards the legitimacy of her father, first, and then her sister Mary. She also witnessed the violence that fanatical ideology unleashed as the country pivoted from the Anglican Church to the Catholic Church and back again.

The rise of Puritanism is a key factor in the decline of drama in England after Shakespeare. The Puritans were fanatical Protestants who regarded the theatre and other forms of entertainment as sinful, so they were always trying to get theatres closed down.

Although Puritans were around in Shakespeare's day, Queen Elizabeth kept them in check, and so English theatre thrived during her reign. However, under later monarchs, Puritans become more powerful and important in public life, giving them a greater degree of control over what people could or couldn't do.

Not long after the outbreak of the English Civil War, the Puritan-dominated Long Parliament closed down all the theaters in London. Then as now, London was the epicenter of English theatre, and so the closing down of theatres had a catastrophic effect on drama in the land of Shakespeare, Marlowe, and Jonson.

Theatres would remain closed until the restoration of the monarchy in 1660. The ascension to the throne of Charles II, a notable patron of the theatrical arts, brought about something of a renaissance in English drama, most notably in the field of comedy, with playwrights such as John Lacy and George Etheridge capturing the public mood for humor and frivolity after years of Puritanical repression.

Two reasons for the decline of Elizabethean theatre is the closing of the theatres by the plague outbreaks during 1592 caused theatres to close for 2 years. After that, the Puritan's closing of the theatres in 1642 as immoral and frivolous certainly caused the theatre to suffer a black eye.

The Jacobeans and those who followed did not have Shakespeare's mastery of the human spirit and failed to understand that at the core of human personality is a deeply moral drive. The Jacobean tragedy was darker and much more focused on revenge. The style reverted back to the Greek tragedy of Seneca. Even in Shakespeare's tragedies, the moral triumph of law remained a firm constant. Shakespeare was a genius in unravelling the deepest secrets of the human spirit.

In comedies, the theatre degenerated into depravity which further alienated the Puritan controlled government officials and encouraged further censorship of performances.

After the death of Shakespeare, the allure of drama gave way to newer genres though not entirely and not all at once.  Printing techniques were being perfected and more books were printed to a (slightly) more literate society making the need for the drama a little less noticeable.  Also England, in the century following Shakespeare's death, fought several wars with quite a few countries depleting many things needed for the theater:  actors, leisure time and an appreciation for the arts all took a hit.

This was happening all over Europe and not all of the decline can be attributed to the death of Shakespeare.  However, whenever the master quits producing, often the art form dies- at least in the worst case scenario.  Sometimes, it is re-invented and transformed.