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The first Globe was built by the company Shakespeare was in – the Lord Chamberlain’s Men. Richard Burbage was the company’s leading actor. They had played at the Theatre, built by the Burbage family on land leased from a Mr Allen. In 1597, Allen refused to renew the lease. However the Burbages owned the Theatre because the lease said they ...
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Globe Theatre, famous London theatre in which after 1599 the plays of William Shakespeare were performed.
Early in 1599 Shakespeare, who had been acting with the Lord Chamberlain’s Men since 1594, paid into the coffers of the company a sum of money amounting to 12.5 percent of the cost of building the Globe. He did so as a chief shareholder in the company, and by doing so he helped to establish a uniquely successful form of commercial operation for the actors of the time. This investment gave Shakespeare and the other leading actors both a share in the company’s profits and a share in their playhouse.
Shakespeare’s company built the Globe only because it could not use the special roofed facility, Blackfriars Theatre, that James Burbage (the father of their leading actor, Richard Burbage) had built in 1596 for it inside the city. The elder Burbage had a long history as a theatrical entrepreneur. In 1576 he had built the first successful amphitheatre, known as The Theatre, in a London suburb. Twenty years later, when the lease on The Theatre’s land was about to expire, he built the theatre in Blackfriars as its replacement. But the wealthy residents of Blackfriars persuaded the government to block its use for plays, so Burbage’s capital was locked up. He died early in 1597, his plans for the future of theatre in London frustrated.
Thus, the members of the Lord Chamberlain’s Men were forced to rent a playhouse. At the end of 1598, they decided to build one for themselves. Because the inheritance of Burbage’s sons, Cuthbert and Richard, was tied up in the Blackfriars, they formed a consortium with Shakespeare and four other actors, who became co-owners of the new Globe. The same shortage of cash made the consortium reluctant traditionalists; they gave up the idea of an indoor theatre in the city. The old playhouse was one of their few remaining resources, but they could not use it in situ because the lease had expired, so they dismantled it, took the timbers (illegally) to make the skeleton of their new amphitheatre, and kept the basic auditorium shape of The Theatre for the new building.
For all its hurried construction in 1599, the Globe proved a triumph. Its first decade of use made it a favourite not just with subsequent generations of theatregoers but with the company itself. In later years the troupe paid a lot to keep it going. At least two circumstances provide evidence for this statement. In 1608, when the company could finally fulfill James Burbage’s original plan for the Blackfriars, the members chose, extravagantly, to operate the two theatres together, using the open-air Globe in the summer and the roofed Blackfriars in the winter. Had they chosen to, they easily could have rented one of the buildings to another company, since there was a shortage of playhouses in London in this period. But they kept both for themselves. They were given a second chance to transfer full-time to the Blackfriars in 1613, when the Globe burned to the ground, its thatch accidentally set alight by a cannon during a performance of Henry VIII. By then the Blackfriars was already beginning to bring better profits than the Globe, since the smaller house size was more than compensated by its higher prices. Instead, bearing the cost out of sentiment and traditional loyalty, the company members dug deep into their own pockets and rebuilt the Globe more splendidly than before.
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Technically, the 1599 Globe and its 1614 replacement span an era in the history of theatre design. The first Globe, based on the skeleton of the original Theatre of 1576, was unique not just as the most famous example of that peculiar and short-lived form of theatre design but because it was actually the first to be built specifically for an existing acting company and financed by the company itself. Shakespeare designed As You Like It, Hamlet, Twelfth Night, Othello, All’s Well That Ends Well, Measure for Measure, King Lear, Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus, Pericles, and The Winter’s Tale, not to mention Troilus and Cressida and Timon of Athens, for performance there.
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]
- It was built by actors. Joined by Shakespeare in 1594, the Lord Chamberlain’s Men were a ‘playing company’ led by actor Richard Burbage. Originally based out of a venue in Shoreditch, disaster struck when the troupe fell out of favour with Queen Elizabeth I. Not wanting any part of the drama, the company’s landlord Giles Alleyn chose to cancel the troupe’s lease and tear down the theatre that Burbage's father had built on the rented land.
- Its construction was considered a crime. The venue drama didn’t end with Burbage and his crew simply changing location, however. If Alleyn was unhappy with his ousted tenants before, he certainly hated them after what happened next.
- The name was inspired by Greek myth. Carrying a whole theatre across London in the dead of night would have been no easy feat. It’s no wonder then that they named the theatre ‘The Globe’ as a tongue-in-cheek nod to the ancient Greek myth of Hercules lifting the world on his back.
- Shakespeare was one of the original investors. Of course, sheer strength and willpower alone wouldn’t help the Globe become an established theatre. The Chamberlain’s Men also needed money.
The new Globe theatre lasted until 1644, at which time it was demolished, and housing was quickly built where it once stood. Recent attempts have been made to re-create the Globe, and replicas have been built in Tokyo and in London.
May 14, 2021 · The Globe Theatre in London is a theatre famous for its association with England’s best-known playwright, William Shakespeare. Built in 1599 by Shakespeare’s Elizabethan playing company, the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, The Globe was destroyed by a fire in 1613. The theatre’s remains were found in 1989, lying underneath a listed building on ...
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The wooden theatre, built in the shape of an O with no roof over the central area, was destroyed by fire in 1613, rebuilt in 1614, and finally pulled down in 1644. Reconstructed (beginning 1987) near the site of the original theatre, the new Globe Theatre inaugurated its first regular season in 1996.
