The Globe Theatre

In 1599 the original Globe Theatre was built in London, England, for the acting company of William Shakespeare. The theatre became famous only because they put on Shakespeare’s plays there. Indeed, Shakespeare designed many of his plays—Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth, Twelfth Night, and All’s Well That Ends Well—for performance in the Globe Theatre. The Globe burnt to the ground in 1613, but they opened a more splendid version of it in 1614.

When the English Civil War broke out in 1642, the Puritans – a group of highly religious and conservative people - closed all of England’s theatres. They closed the Globe Theatre, too, to make way for housing. In 1970 the American actor Sam Wanamaker founded the Shakespeare Globe Playhouse Trust to raise enough money to rebuild a replica of the original Globe Theatre. Seventeen years later, a replica of the original Shakespeare’s Globe was rebuilt and a ground-breaking opening ceremony was held on Bankside, near the original Globe Theatre.

In 1989, they discovered the foundations of the original building beneath a 19th-century building. They could examine only a small percentage of the original theatre, but the discovery of these foundations made it possible for the architects to make some changes in the design of the new one. The new Globe Theatre is not a perfect replica of the original building. The first reason is that some things about the design of the original Globe Theatre, such as the shape of the stage, are not known for certain. The second reason is that designers had to make some changes to meet modern fire-safety regulations. For example, modern health and safety rules require more exits and fire doors, so the new one has more of them.

The new Globe Theatre opened in 1997. Plays by Shakespeare and other writers are presented there today. It’s not only a theatre, but also a very famous tourist attraction today.