The Globe Theater

The Globe Theater

Among the many famous writers we have studied this year is William Shakespeare. Shakespeare's life was assuredly most intriguing. Seeking answers, we had simple questions we wanted to determine. What were his morals? His passions? His legacy? When studying Shakespeare, we found that his life revolved around the Globe Theatre. Naturally we wanted to see why Shakespeare spent so much of his life involved in the Globe. The first Globe lasted from 1599-1613. Additionally, this structure was called the "wooden o" playhouse. Before the Globe, there was another "Theatre", which many people do not realize. "The Theatre" prospered for 21 years. Refusing to renew the players' lease, the landowner Giles Allen caused an unexpected problem for the players. James Burbage had recently died and his two sons, Richard and Cuthbert became managers. Although Allen owned the land, the sons owned the Theatre, and they wanted their valuable timber. In desperation, the brothers decided to take action. They leased land across the river and they waited until Christmastime to strike, when they could be sure Allen was away on vacation. At night they began to dismantle the Theatre piece by piece and floated it across the river Thames. With the timber, the brothers and their friends reconstructed their cherished playhouse. Because of the saying "the whole world is a stage" they would call it the Globe Theatre. By the middle of 1599 the Globe opened and was a huge success. Audiences were packed in "the house with a thatched roof", sometimes even so much as three thousand people could be held at once. For sixpence the rich sat in the Lord's Rooms to get a better view, which were on the top half of the Globe. For threepence they sat on cushions in the Gentlemen's Rooms. For twopence they perched on hard wooden benches, but most were called "groundlings" who paid a penny to stand in the yard beneath the open roof. Interestingly enough, there were two trap doors, the trap door to heaven and the trap door to hell. Since the players already had to pay for the structure most of the actors actually lived in the Theatre. During a play of Henry the V, a spark from a cannon accidentally caught the thatched roof on fire and the whole Globe was burned down in less than an hour. Yet within a year a second Globe was built and completed in 1614 but the Puritans tore it down in 1644.