Shakespeare's Globe is a reconstruction of the Globe Theatre, an Elizabethan playhouse for which William Shakespeare wrote his plays, in the London Borough of Southwark, on the south bank of the River Thames. The original theatre was built in 1599, destroyed by a fire in 1613, rebuilt in 1614, and then demolished in 1644. The modern Globe Theatre is an academic approximation based on available evidence of the 1599 and 1614 buildings. It is considered quite realistic, though modern safety requirements mean that it accommodates only 1,400 spectators compared to the original theatre's 3,000.[1][2]
The modern Shakespeare's Globe was founded by the actor and director Sam Wanamaker, and built about 230 metres (750ft) from the site of the original theatre in the historic open-air style. It opened to the public in 1997, with a production of Henry V. The site also includes the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, an indoor theatre which opened in January 2014. This is a smaller, candle-lit space based on historic plans for an indoor playhouse of Jacobean era London (possibly Blackfriars Theatre). The Sackler Studios, an educational and rehearsal studio complex, is situated just around the corner from the main site.
Michelle Terry currently serves as artistic director. She is the second actor-manager in charge of the organisation, following Mark Rylance, the founding artistic director.
Planning and construction
In 1970, American actor and director Sam Wanamaker founded the Shakespeare Globe Trust and the International Shakespeare Globe Centre, with the objective of building a faithful recreation of Shakespeare's Globe close to its original location at Bankside, Southwark. This inspired the founding of a number of Shakespeare's Globe Centres around the world, an activity in which Wanamaker also participated.
Stage and galleries
Many people maintained that a faithful Globe reconstruction was impossible to achieve due to the complications in the 16th-century design and modern fire safety requirements; however, Wanamaker and his associate Diana Devlin persevered in their vision for over 20 years to create the theatre.[3] A new Globe theatre was eventually built according to a design based on the research of historical adviser John Orrell.[4]
It was Wanamaker's wish that the new building recreate the Globe as it existed during most of Shakespeare's time there; that is, the 1599 building rather than its 1614 replacement.[5] A study was made of what was known of the construction of The Theatre, the building from which the 1599 Globe obtained much of its timber, as a starting point for the modern building's design. To this were added: examinations of other surviving London buildings from the latter part of the 16th century; comparisons with other theatres of the period (particularly the Fortune Playhouse, for which the building contract survives); and contemporary drawings and descriptions of the first Globe.[6] For practical reasons, some features of the 1614 rebuilding were incorporated into the modern design, such as the external staircases.[7] The design team consisted of architect Theo Crosby of Pentagram, structural and services engineer Buro Happold, and quantity surveyors from Boyden & Co. The construction, building research and historic design details were undertaken by McCurdy & Co.[8]
In 1994, the name "Globe Theatre" was used by one of the theatres in Shaftesbury Avenue; to make the name available and to avoid confusion, that year it was renamed as the Gielgud Theatre.[9]
The theatre opened in 1997[10] under the name "Shakespeare's Globe Theatre", and has staged plays every summer. Mark Rylance became the first artistic director in 1995 and was succeeded by Dominic Dromgoole in 2006.[11] In January 2016, Emma Rice began her term as the Globe's third artistic director,[12] but in October 2016 announced her decision to resign from the position.[13][14] On 24 July 2017 her successor was announced to be the actor and writer Michelle Terry.[15]
Elevated view of the GlobeThe Globe set up for a performance of Romeo and Juliet (2019)
The theatre is located on Bankside, about 230 metres (750ft) from the original site—measured from centre to centre.[16] Listed Georgian townhouses now occupy part of the original site and could not be considered for removal. Like the original Globe, the modern theatre has a thrust stage that projects into a large circular yard surrounded by three tiers of raked seating. The only covered parts of the amphitheatre are the stage and the seating areas. Plays are staged during the summer, usually between May and the first week of October; in the winter, the theatre is used for educational purposes. Tours are available all year round. Some productions are filmed and released to cinemas as Globe on Screen productions (usually in the year following the live production), and on DVD.
The reconstruction was carefully researched so that the new building would be as faithful a replica of the original as possible. This was aided by the discovery of the remains of the original Rose Theatre, a nearby neighbour to the Globe, as final plans were being made for the site and structure.
The building itself is constructed entirely of English oak, with mortise and tenon joints[8] and is, in this sense, an "authentic" 16th-century timber-framed building as no structural steel was used. The seats are simple benches (though cushions can be hired for performances) and the Globe has what has been claimed to be the first and only thatched roof permitted in London since the Great Fire of London in 1666.[8] The modern thatch is well protected by fire retardants, and sprinklers on the roof ensure further protection against fire. The pit has a concrete surface,[8] as opposed to earthen-ground covered with strewn rush from the original theatre. The theatre has extensive backstage support areas for actors and musicians, and is attached to a modern lobby, restaurant, gift shop and visitor centre. Seating capacity is 873[17] with an additional 700 "Groundlings" standing in the yard,[18] making up an audience about half the size of a typical audience in Shakespeare's time.
For its first 18 seasons, performances were engineered to duplicate the original environment of Shakespeare's Globe; there were no spotlights, and plays were staged during daylight hours and in the evenings (with the help of interior floodlights), there were no microphones, speakers or amplification. All music was performed live, most often on period instruments; and the actors and the audience could see and interact easily with each other, adding to the feeling of a shared experience and of a community event.
Typically, performances have been created in the spirit of experimentation to explore the original playing conditions of the 1599 Globe. Modern and conventional theatre technology such as spotlights and microphones were not used during this period. Beginning in the 2016 season, the new artistic director, Emma Rice, began experimenting with the theatre space by installing a temporary lighting and sound rig. The current artistic director, Michelle Terry, has brought back the experimentation on original playing conditions.[19]
The Globe operates without any public subsidy and generates £24 million in revenue per year.[20]
Adjacent to the Globe is the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, an indoor theatre modelled after a Jacobean-era theatre and used for performances during the winter months when the main theatre cannot be used.
Read Not Dead
Read Not Dead is a series of play readings, or staged "performances with scripts" that have been presented as part of the educational programme of Shakespeare's Globe since 1995. The plays selected are those that were written between 1576 and 1642 by Shakespeare's contemporaries or near contemporaries. These readings are performed at Shakespeare's Globe Sackler Studios as well as other theatres, halls, festivals and fields nationwide.[21]
In 2013 there were Read Not Dead performances at the Wilderness Festival and at the Glastonbury Festival.[22] In 2014, the final production in Read not Dead's first season was performed at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, which is the indoor Jacobean style theatre. The play selected for that occasion was Robert Daborne’s A Christian Turn'd Turk.[23]
Globe on Screen
The Globe's productions are often screened in cinemas and released on DVD. In 2015, the venue launched Globe Player, a video-on-demand service enabling viewers to watch the plays on laptops and mobile devices. The theatre was the first in the world to make its plays available as video-on-demand.[24]
Other replicas
Replicas and free interpretations of the Globe have been built around the world:
↑ Greenfield, Jon (1997). "Timber framing, the two bays and after". In Mulryne, J. R.; Shewring, Margaret (eds.). Shakespeare's Globe Rebuilt. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. pp.102–3. ISBN0-521-59988-1.
↑ Bowsher, Julian; Miller, Pat (2010). "The New Globe". The Rose and the Globe – playhouses of Shakespeare's Bankside, Southwark. Museum of London. p.162. ISBN978-1-901992-85-4.
↑ This number can be derived by counting all seats on the detailed seating plans that are shown after selecting an event and start the booking procedure at "Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, London". online. Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, London. 2009. Archived from the original on 25 October 2016. Retrieved 29 November 2009. and adding another 20 for the "Gentlemen's Rooms" ( "Shakespeare's Globe". Gentlemen's Rooms. Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, London. 2009. Retrieved 29 November 2009.)
Fiorillo, Ezio, Shakespeare’s Globe. As You Like It, aut Enim Interpretari Placet, Translation by Jackie Little, All’insegna del Matamoros, Algua (Bergamo) 2013. ISBN978-88-907489-2-9
Rylance, Mark: Play: A Recollection in Pictures and Words of the First Five Years of Play at Shakespeares's Globe Theatre. Photogr.: Sheila Burnett, Donald Cooper, Richard Kolina, John Tramper. Shakespeare's Globe Publ., London, 2003. ISBN0-9536480-4-4.
The Globe Theatre was a theatre in London associated with William Shakespeare. It was built in 1599 at Southwark, close to the south bank of the Thames, by Shakespeare's playing company, the Lord Chamberlain's Men. It was destroyed by fire on 29 June 1613. A second Globe Theatre was built on the same site by June 1614 and stayed open until the London theatre closures of 1642. As well as plays by Shakespeare, early works by Ben Jonson, Thomas Dekker and John Fletcher were first performed here.
Samuel Wanamaker, was an American actor and director who moved to the United Kingdom after becoming fearful of being blacklisted in Hollywood due to his communist views. He is credited as the person most responsible for saving The Rose Theatre, which led to the modern recreation of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in London, where he is commemorated in the name of the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, the site's second theatre.
Philip Henslowe was an Elizabethan theatrical entrepreneur and impresario. Henslowe's modern reputation rests on the survival of his diary, a primary source for information about the theatrical world of Renaissance London.
The Rose was an Elizabethan theatre. It was the fourth of the public theatres to be built, after The Theatre (1576), the Curtain (1577), and the theatre at Newington Butts – and the first of several playhouses to be situated in Bankside, Southwark, in a liberty outside the jurisdiction of the City of London's civic authorities. Its remains were excavated by archaeologists in 1989 and are listed by Historic England as a Scheduled Monument.
The Theatre was an Elizabethan playhouse in Shoreditch, just outside the City of London. It was the first permanent theatre ever built in England. It was built in 1576 after the Red Lion, and the first successful one. Built by actor-manager James Burbage, near the family home in Holywell Street, The Theatre is considered the first theatre built in London for the sole purpose of theatrical productions. The Theatre's history includes a number of important acting troupes including the Lord Chamberlain's Men, which employed Shakespeare as actor and playwright. After a dispute with the landlord, the theatre was dismantled and the timbers used in the construction of the Globe Theatre on Bankside.
Blackfriars Theatre was the name given to two separate theatres located in the former Blackfriars Dominican priory in the City of London during the Renaissance. The first theatre began as a venue for the Children of the Chapel Royal, child actors associated with the Queen's chapel choirs, and who from 1576 to 1584 staged plays in the vast hall of the former monastery. The second theatre dates from the purchase of the upper part of the priory and another building by James Burbage in 1596, which included the Parliament Chamber on the upper floor that was converted into the playhouse. The Children of the Chapel played in the theatre beginning in the autumn of 1600 until the King's Men took over in 1608. They successfully used it as their winter playhouse until all the theatres were closed in 1642 when the English Civil War began. In 1666, the entire area was destroyed in the Great Fire of London.
Sir David Mark Rylance Waters is a British actor, playwright and theatre director. He is known for his roles on stage and screen having received numerous awards including an Academy Award, three BAFTA Awards, two Olivier Awards and three Tony Awards. In 2016, he was included in the Time 100 list of the world's most influential people. In 2017 was made a knight by Queen Elizabeth II.
Dominic Dromgoole is an English theatre director and writer about the theatre who has recently begun to work in film. He lives in Hackney with his three daughters and partner Sasha Hails.
The American Shakespeare Center (ASC) is a regional theatre company located in Staunton, Virginia, that focuses on the plays of William Shakespeare; his contemporaries Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, Christopher Marlowe; and works related to Shakespeare, like James Goldman's The Lion in Winter and Bob Carlton's Return to the Forbidden Planet.
The Fortune Playhouse was a historic theatre in London. It was located between Whitecross Street and the modern Golden Lane, just outside the City of London. It was founded about 1600, and suppressed by the Puritan Parliament in 1642.
Sam Crane is an English actor. He attended Oxford University and LAMDA, where he won the Nicholas Hytner Award. He played Farinelli in Claire van Kampen's Farinelli and the King opposite Mark Rylance at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse and reprised his role when the production transferred first to the Duke of York's Theatre and then to the Belasco Theatre on Broadway. He is also known for playing Winston Smith in Headlong's production of 1984 in the West End, Fred Walters in the BBC's six-part drama series Desperate Romantics and Frederick Abberline in Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed Syndicate. In 2017 he played Patrick Plunket in an episode of the Netflix series The Crown. Since 13th October 2022 Sam has been playing the lead, Harry Potter, in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child at the Palace Theatre, London.
The Sam Wanamaker Award or Sam Wanamaker Prize is an award established in 1994 for pioneering work in Shakespearean theatre, usually given to individuals who have worked closely with Shakespeare's Globe or the Royal Shakespeare Company; the award is not specific to artistic contribution, and has frequently been granted to businessmen and academics. It is one of the two current British awards for classical theatre, alongside the Ian Charleson Award. It is presented by Shakespeare's Globe and named after Sam Wanamaker, the theatre's founder.
Michelle Terry is an Olivier Award–winning English actress and writer, known for her extensive work for Shakespeare's Globe, the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal National Theatre, as well as her television work, notably writing and starring in the Sky One television series The Café. Terry took up the role of artistic director at Shakespeare's Globe in April 2018.
Lucy Bailey is a British theatre director, known for productions such as Baby Doll at Britain's National Theatre and a notorious Titus Andronicus. Bailey founded the Gogmagogs theatre-music group (1995–2006) and was Artistic Director and joint founder of the Print Room theatre in West London (2010-2012). She has worked extensively with Bunny Christie and other leading stage designers, including her husband William Dudley.
Shakespeare Festival Neuss is an annual theatre festival in Neuss, Germany. It has taken place in a replica of the Globe Theatre on the grounds of the Neuss racecourse since 1991.
Peter Street was an English carpenter and builder in London in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. He built the Fortune Playhouse, and probably the Globe Theatre, two significant establishments in the history of the stage in London. He had a part in building King James's Banqueting House in Whitehall Palace and he may have been responsible for the settings for the king's royal masques.
Jessica Swale is a British playwright, theatre director and screenwriter. Her first play, Blue Stockings, premiered at Shakespeare's Globe in 2013. It is widely performed by UK amateur companies and is also studied on the Drama GCSE syllabus. In 2016, her play Nell Gwynn won the Olivier Award for Best New Comedy, after it transferred from the Globe to the West End, starring Gemma Arterton as the eponymous heroine. She also wrote and directed the feature film Summerland (2020).
The Sam Wanamaker Playhouse is an indoor theatre forming part of Shakespeare's Globe, along with the Globe Theatre on Bankside, London. Built making use of 17th-century plans for an indoor theatre, the playhouse recalls the layout and style of the Blackfriars Theatre, although it is not an exact reconstruction. Its shell was built during the construction of the Shakespeare's Globe complex, notable for the reconstruction of the open-air Globe Theatre of the same period. The shell was used as a space for education workshops and rehearsals until enough money was raised to complete the playhouse. It opened in January 2014, named after Sam Wanamaker, the leading figure in the Globe's reconstruction.
Claire Louise van Kampen, Lady Rylance is an English director, composer and playwright. She composed the music for Mark Rylance's 1989 performance as Hamlet and shared the 2007 Sam Wanamaker Award with him. Her composing credits include music for productions of the plays Days and Nights and Boeing-Boeing.
Romantics Anonymous is a musical with music by Michael Kooman, lyrics by Christopher Dimond and book by Emma Rice. It is based on the 2010 French-Belgian film Les Émotifs Anonymes by Jean-Pierre Améris and Philippe Blasband.
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Blackfriars 
