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  • Brief History of Playhouses
      Did you know?
      The 'circularity' of Elizabethan playhouses is a rather common misconception. They were actually many-sided polygons.
    • During the Elizabethan era in England, plays were very pupolar.
    • Actors set up platform, props, and curtain in streets or anywhere possible - people came from all over
    • Only men were allowed to perform - not women.
    • The most common place to see a play was in a hotel, where the guests would watch the actors from balconies. (The hotels were round and resembled O's.) Thus, the first playhouse built (1576) - The Theatre - looked a lot like a hotel.
    • The Theatre became incredibly popular, and more playhouses were built - The Rose, The Swan, The Hope. However, all of them looked fairly identical - circular with open roof.
    • Each of the playhouses had its own playwright and acting company; and each competed with each other.
    • The Theatre was owner by Burbage Brothers when one day the lease on the land expired. At night, they secretly (and unlawfully) disassembled it and took to the oposite bank of the river with a goal to assemble a new playhouse. The Theatre's derivative opened in 1599 and it was called The Globe.
  • The Original Globe
    • The Globe 3 stories high, 100 ft in diameter; its stage was 5 ft high. The innner yard was 70 ft. The Musician's Loft was above the stage.
    • The roof was thatched. There was no scenery on the stage, and very few props (including a cannon that shot blanks). The ceilign was called "the heavens" because it was beutifully painted to look like the sky. There were two oak columns (painted like marble) holding up the Heavens.
    • Total of 3 stage enterances - large middle covered by curtain - two side ones where actors came out.
    • The Globe Floor Plan
           Yard
       Outer Galleries
       Middle Gallery
       Gentlemen's Rooms
       Lords' Rooms
       Musicians' Loft
       Stage
      The Globe was pretty much open to every social class. The poor only had to pay one pence to stand in the yard. This was the cheapest place in the theatre. The next 'level' were outer galleries and middle gallery. It cost 2 pence for a seat on gallery benches, but the middle gallery was concidered better than the outer galleries because there was a better view at the stage from it. Then were the comfy cushions gentlemen's rooms, 3 pence, and - the highest - the lords' rooms - that cost 6 pence a seat. Up to 3,000 people could be squeezed into the Globe at a time.
      It was very hard to devise a floor plan because mere descriptions are never enough. Therefore, the plan I made (right) is not to scale and is only to create a general idea.
    • Due to the open roof, Globe was only open during Summers.
    • Three blasts of the trumpet notified of the start of the play.
    • The first play in The Globe - Julius Ceasar (1599)
    • Shakespeare wrote and performed in plays in the Globe. His plays were successful for many years - apparently, they still are.
    • During performance of Henry VIII in 1613 a spark from the cannon set the thatched roof on fire. It took less than an hour for the Globe to burn down. Luckily no one was hurt or killed.
  • Tiled (2nd) Globe
    • Immediately after the accident, the Globe Theatre was rebuilt where the first one had stood.
    • It was better than the first - the roof was made of non-flamable tile.
    • All the other characteristics of the Globe, including its popularity, remained.
    • William Shakespeare died in 1616, but the Globe continued until 1642 when the Puritans closed all the playhouses in London.
    • In 1643 the Globe was demolished for public housing.
  • The New (3rd) Globe
    • A little over 300 years laterm San Wanamaker decided to rebuild the Globe.
    • In 1970 he established the "Shakespeare's Globe Plyhouse Trust" and began designing plans of the new building.
    • Since there were no drawings or records of Globe's architecture, experts had to study drawings, letters and document from Shakespeare's time to recreate the Globe.
    • Although consturction began in 1987, pieces of the Globes original foundation were found in Oct. 1989 (almost 200 yds away from the constuction site, too).
    • With the help of the 5% of recovered foundation, the experts made Globe as much like the original as possible. Heavens were painted and the rest of the decorations were made. The Globe was a 20-sided polygon.
    • In 1993 Wanamaker died before seeing his Globe completed.
    • The Globe was officially finished in 1994.
    • First play in the New Globe was Henry V on June 12, 1997.
    • Queen Elizabeth II attended the opening of the New Globe.