Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, London

The Globe Theatre is a theatre associated with William Shakespeare. In fact is is one of three theatres in London associated with Shakespeare. These are:


The Globe Theatre was owned by many actors, who (except for one) were also shareholders in the Lord Chamberlain's Men, the company where William Shakespeare worked as an actor and playwright. Two of the six shareholders, Richard Burbage and his brother Cuthbert Burbage, owned double shares, or 25% each; while the remaining four, Shakespeare, John Heminges, Augustine Phillips, and Thomas Pope, owned a single share, or 12.5%. William Kempe was originally intended to be the seventh partner, but he sold out his share to the four minority sharers, leaving them with more than the originally planned 10%. That was the original proportion. It changed with time, with Shakespeare's share diminishing from 1/8 to 1/14, or roughly 7%, over the course of his career.

The Globe was built in 1599 using timber from an earlier theatre, called quite simply The Theatre, which had been built by Richard Burbage's father, James Burbage, in Shoreditch in 1576. The Burbages held a 21-year lease of the site on which The Theatre was built. They dismantled The Theatre beam by beam and transported it over the Thames to reconstruct it as The Globe. For that reason, the Burbage brothers held half the shares of the Globe Theatre.

The Globe Theatre went up in flames on 29 June, 1613, during a performance of Henry the Eighth. It was due to a misfiring of the theatrical cannon. It ignited the wooden beams and thatching. Nobody was hurt except for a man who attempted to put out his burning breeches with a bottle of ale.

Like all the other theatres in London, the Globe was closed down by the Puritans in 1642. This was after it was rebuilt in 1614. Two years later, in 1644, it was demolished to make room for tenements. Its exact location remained unknown until 1989, when remnants of its foundations were discovered beneath the car park of Anchor Terrace on Park Street. The shape of the foundations are replicated in the surface of the car park. There may be further remains of the original Globe Theatre beneath the 18th century Anchor Terrace building. However Anchor Terrace itself is listed as a heritage structure and therefore cannot be disturbed by archaeologists.

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