The simplest representations of Virginia and the New World on the English Early Modern stage are brief, passing references which appear in plays whose plots may have nothing to do with exploration and colonization.  References in passing to New World ventures show that playwrights could assume their playhouse audiences had at least a basic knowledge of the recent English voyages to the New World, and that they could expect those audiences to recognize certain typical images of the New World.

In the  "Induction for the Stage" of Ben Jonson's Bartholomew Fair, the Stage-keeper says:

The speaker of the induction criticizes the playwright for his inaccurate depiction of a section of London familiar to the theatre audience, and says that the action might as well have been set in Virginia.  This depends on the audience's recognition of "Virginia" as a foreign and exotic place which is definitely not like London.  Since the play was first performed in 1614, Jonson's audience might have read or had reported to them many accounts of the Jamestown settlement, as well as accounts of Sir Walter Raleigh's earlier exploration of Virginia.

References to the New World also come up in plays which predate the Jamestown settlement.  Shakespeare refers to America in The Comedy of Errors, which had its first performance around 1594 .  Antipholus and Dromio of Syracuse discuss Dromio's unwanted suitor, the Kitchen Wench, and compare various parts of her anatomy to geographic locations:

These lines play on the image of the Americas and the West Indies as places of fabulous wealth, an image which came into England from reports by Spanish explorers of their adventures in South America.  Many of these accounts appeared in English translation in the second half of the 16th century.  Shakespeare employs the association of New World wealth with Spain in these lines from the play.  During the early period of English exploration in North America, this image of the vast wealth of the New World transferred to Virginia in the popular imagination, but the image became less frequent in the later Jacobean period as it became clear that the colonists would not find huge stores of gold in Virginia.

Another play with a passing reference to the New World which seems to be connected to Spanish reports of South America is Shakespeare's All's Well That Ends Well, which scholars date between 1602 and 1606.  In describing her feelings for Bertram to the Countess, Helena says:

Spanish explorers described South and Central Americans as sun worshippers, and Helena here refers to "Indians" worshipping the sun and describes herself as likewise in "error."  In this brief comment, Shakespeare makes use of the image of American natives as sun worshippers, a form of worship which Europeans attributed to North American natives as well, and identifies that worship as mistaken. This passing reference assumes an audience that has some previous knowledge explorers' reports about American religious practices.

Ideas about travel, exploration, and colonization form a large part of the plot and themes of Shakespeare's The Tempest, first performed in 1611.  In fact Shakespeare used narratives from some members of the Virginia Company as sources for his play.  The play also contains some passing references which assume the audience's ability to recognize images from English contact with the New World without the play's script offering further explanation.  For example, Trinculo remarks, when he comes across Caliban for the first time:

Audiences of The Tempest might recall that Sir Walter Raleigh had brought two Native Americans, Manteo and Winchese, to England in 1584 as a sort of publicity stunt for the Roanoke colony.  In 1617, a few years after the play was first performed, Virginian native Pocahontas and some other members of the Powhatan tribe would travel to London in the company of Pocahontas' husband, Jamestown colonist John Rolfe, and other members of the Virginia company.  The practice of explorers and colonists bringing natives of colonized lands to visit England would have been familiar to theatre audiences.