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Shakespeare's Globe
A Brief Introduction
The Shakespeare Globe Trust
In 1949, when Sam Wanamaker came to London for the first time, he looked for the site of the original Globe and was
disappointed not to find a more lasting memorial to one of the greatest playwrights in the world.
In 1970 he founded the Shakespeare Globe Trust, dedicated to the experience and international understanding of
Shakespeare in performance. Itrs work celebrates the fact that the greatest dramatic poet in the English language lived
and worked in London and that the cradle of English theatre was on Bankside by the River Thames.
In 1987, building work began on site when the six-metre deep foundations were laid. In 1993, the construction of the
Globe Theatre itself began.
Sadly, Sam Wanamaker died on 18th December 1993. At that time, twelve of the fifteen bays had been erected. The
plasterwork and thatching began the following year and were completed in 1997.
Shakespeare’s Globe
Shakespeare’s Globe is being developed for the enjoyment and exploration of Shakespeare and his contemporaries in
performance. It is a world-class facility on the south bank of the River Thames, opposite St. Paul’s Cathedral, in
London.
It consists of three enterprises which contribute to the overall aim. These are:
The Globe Theatre, with a professional theatre company incorporating international artists playing a summer season
of plays.
Globe Education, which works with students of all ages exploring Shakespeare’s scripts in relation to the stage for
which they were written.
Shakespeare’s Globe Exhibition, the most extensive exhibition in the world devoted to Shakespeare and his
contemporaries in performance. Against a historical background of Bankside in Shakespeare’s times, it focuses on the
Actor and others involved in staging the plays, the Architecture and the craftsmen who built and decorated the
playhouse and the Audiences attending the performances.
These three activities together attract more than 750,000 people per annum to Shakespeare’s Globe.
The Globe Theatre is at the heart of the centre and is the focus of all three enterprises. It was completed in June 1997.
To date, the cost of developing the International Shakespeare Globe Centre and Shakespeare's Globe Exhibition on
this 2,100 square metre site has been £30 million. It is estimated that a further £15 million is needed to complete the
outstanding phases of the Globe's capital programme.
For more detailed information, please download a copy of
What are the differences between the Globe in Shakespeare's day and
the present Globe?
Mostly the differences are caused by reasons of safety. There are four
entrances instead of two, there are exit signs and fire sprinklers; otherwise it
is as much like Shakespeare's Globe as possible.
How do you know what the first Globe was like?
We have information from letters written by people who actually went to the
playhouse, from the plays themselves and from picture maps. All that
information was checked by looking at what was found when the site of the
Rose playhouse and a bit of the first Globe which was dug up.
Did Queen Elizabeth I go to the Globe?
No. The actors would give a special performance of the same play at one of
the Royal Palaces.
Did people really throw tomatoes at the actors?
Tomatoes were not known in England at that time. People went to the
playhouse especially to hear and see the play, not to spoil their enjoyment.
At the end of the performance the actors would announce the next day's
play, and if it was unpopular people might throw things and shout that this
was a bad choice.
Why were there no actresses?
The short answer is tradition. Plays throughout Europe had been performed
by all-male casts in the Middle Ages, probably because they were closely
connected with the male-dominated church; while all other European
countries allowed women on stage by Shakespeare's time, in England this
change did not occur until the 1660s. Female roles in Shakespeare's day
were played by teenage boys who were apprenticed to an adult member of
the company. (Teenagers developed later in those days, and their voices
may not have broken until they were 17 or 18.)
Do you only do Shakespeare's plays in the Globe today?
No. Shakespeare is most popular because he writes such wonderful
dramatic verse that there is always something new to excite an audience.
But we do plays by other writers, especially if they were written for the Globe.
What happens if it rains?
The people who have seats in the galleries have a roof over their heads and
so do the actors. Groundlings who stand in the yard usually come prepared
to pull up their hoods in the wet. They seem to enjoy the play just as much
as when the weather is hot.
Why is there no roof?
The London theatre industry of the late sixteenth- century flourished in
purpose-built open-air amphitheatres, the first such venues to be erected
since the departure of the Romans 1000 years earlier. Their antecedent was
not the Greek amphitheatre, which had a shallow bowl shape and one tier of
seating sweeping upwards, but the Roman amphitheatre as exemplified in
the Colosseum, which stacked one deck of galleries on top of another.
James Burbage named his playhouse of 1576 the Theatre to make explicit
its dependence on the classical model, as its round shape and stacked
galleries implied. Foreign visitors got the point and repeatedly referred to the
London theatres looking like Roman amphitheatres. We want to experiment
with the ways the plays worked in daylight without a roof just as they did in
Shakespeare's day.
Did they have costume and scenery in the first Globe?
Costume was very important. Audiences needed to know what sort of person
a character was, so the tiring house at the back of the stage held many fine
and expensive costumes for characters such as Kings and Queens, roman
soldiers, ghosts or clowns; (Tiring means attiring or dressing). The stage
could be hung with painted cloths, and pieces of scenery like beds, thrones
or tents could be brought on, lowered from above or pushed up through a
trap-door in the stage floor. The whole playhouse was brilliantly painted,
especially the 'heavens' above the stage which was decorated with sun,
moon and stars.
What about sound and music?
There are a great many sound cues in the plays. Musicians either perform in
the balcony above the stage or on the stage itself. There are also sounds
such as bells, thunder and sea storms, crowds off-stage, trumpet-calls and
even gun-fire. All these are made 'live' in various parts of the tiring house. It
was a piece of wadding fired from a cannon used to create a sound effect
that set the first Globe on fire. We are more careful now but we still do not
use recorded sound.
Is it difficult for an actor to be heard?
There was probably a great deal of outside noise in the sixteenth century
from the boats on the river and from iron shot horses and the wheels of
carts. There are different problems today. We have planes as well as boats
on the river and building work outside. Voices carry very well inside the
Globe when it is full of people and actors simply have to experiment with how
to speak directly to the various part of the playhouse. No member of the
audience is very far from the stage even though it holds about fifteen
hundred people.
Theo Crosby
Theo Crosby was the architect of Shakespeare’s Globe. A founding partner
of Pentagram Design Ltd, he became involved in the Globe project in 1969
and began designs for the site in 1986. He died in 1994. Since then, his work
has been continued by Jon Greenfield, who first joined the project in 1987.
The Globe Theatre
The original site of the Globe Theatre lies about 200 yards from its
reconstruction on Bankside. The foundations were discovered in 1989 under
a Grade II listed Georgian terrace and Southwark Bridge Road.
Archaeological excavations, panoramas, maps, building contracts,
contemporary accounts and remaining buildings have each contributed to a
body of knowledge that informed the reconstruction of the Globe Theatre.
There are no remaining plans or construction drawings that clearly depict the
form of the theatre itself.
Key facts:
The original architect of the Globe was Peter Street. The new Globe had as
its mastercraftsman Peter McCurdy www.mccurdyco.com
The Globe Theatre is 33ft high to the eaves (45ft overall)
6,000 bundles of Norfolk Water Reed were used on the Globe’s roof
36,000 handmade bricks were used
90 tons of lime putty were used for the Tudor brickwork
180 tons of lime plaster went into the outer walls
168,000 metres of oak laths were used for both sides of the walls
The Globe’s pillars, which hold up the roof over the stage, are 28ft high and
weigh a total of 3 tons