Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
By 1599, 35-year-old William Shakespeare was a well-known actor, playwright, and busi-
Lord Chamberlain's Men, built the 3,000-seat Globe Theatre, by far the largest of its day
(200 yards from today's replica, where only a plaque stands now). The Globe premiered
Shakespeare's greatest works—
Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth
—in open-air sum-
mer afternoon performances, though occasionally at night by the light of torches and buck-
ets of tar-soaked ropes.
In 1612, it featured Shakespeare's
All Is True (Henry VIII).
During Scene 4, a stage
cannon boomed, announcing the arrival of King Henry, who started flirting with Anne Bo-
leyn. As the two actors generated sparks onstage, play-watchers smelled fire. Some stray
cannon wadding had sparked a real fire offstage. Within an hour, the wood-and-thatch
building had burned completely to the ground, but with only one injury: A man's pants
caught fire and were quickly doused with a tankard of ale.
Built in 1997, the new Globe—round, half-timbered, thatched, with wooden pegs for
nails—is a quite realistic replica, though slightly smaller (seating 1,500 spectators), loc-
ated a block away from the original site, and constructed with fire-repellent materials. Per-
formances are staged almost nightly in summer—check at the box office (at the east end
of the complex). A recent addition is the indoor Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, behind the
