The Globe Theatre is one of London's oldest theatres, closely associated with the name of the great English playwright William Shakespeare. At the end of the 16th century professional acting troupes emerged, from travelling stage shows into permanent theatres. The first special buildings are being built - before that, plays were performed at fairs, in palace banqueting halls, inn houses, bear traps and cockfights. The first was James Burbage, who in 1576 built a theatre room for theatrical for theatrical performances, which he called "The Theatre". In 1598, it was dismantled and moved to a new location, and in 1599 the Globe Theatre was built.
The theatre was owned on shares by the actors of the Lord Chamberlain's Servants troupe. The members of the the company included James Burbage's two sons Richard and Cuthbert, as well as William Shakespeare. The theatre may have opened with a production of Henry V, but the first documented production at the new theatre was Ben Jonson's "Every man without his quirks". On 29 June 1613, during a performance of Henry VIII, a fire broke out in the theatre. A shot from a theatre cannon set fire to the thatched roof and wooden walls. None of the audience were injured. Rebuilt in 1614, the theatre was closed down by the Puritans in 1642, like all other theatres in London. Two years later, the building was demolished and replaced by tenement houses.
The exact location of the theatre was discovered during archaeological excavations in 1988-89. In particular, it turned out that the building of "Globe" in the plan was not a circle, but a polygon with 20 sides. The stage rose a metre and a half above the floor, and a rectangular proscenium extended into the parterre with standing seats. There was a hatch in the floor of the stage from which ghosts appeared, and in the depths there was a balcony, the so-called “upper stage”. The stage had no curtain, performances were performed during the day, with virtually no scenery or props, and there were a lot of “theatrical conventions” known to the public. For example, if a character changed into a different costume, then no one recognized him.
A modern theatre called Shakespeare's Globe Theatre was built in 1997 about 200 metres from where the old one was located. The new building is based on the plans of the time and recreates as much as possible the look of a of Shakespeare's theatre. Since 1666 - the Great Fire of London - this is the first building to be allowed to be covered in thatch. Plays are given from May to October, and tours are available all year round.
