London+Globe+Theater

=London Globe Theater=

Some Facts:
 * It was used many times for Shakespeare's play, but it closed many times during the plague to prevent the disease from spreading.
 * The Globe Theater was built by Shakespeare's play company, The Lord Chamberlain's Men
 * The Globe Theater is the only building in London, since the Black Plague, allowed to have a thatched roof. At the time, plays had always been staged on church steps or in inn yards.
 * It is located in London's Southwark District.
 * The Globe Theater burnt down in 1613 and was rebuilt in 1614.
 * The Globe Theater 1644, the second Globe Theater was demolished by Puritans and was rebuilt in the 21st century in its original spot.
 * William Shakespeare invested money into the rebuilding of the Globe Theater and then he retired.
 * The 'Globe Theater' is built from the pieces of 'The Theater' in July, 1599.
 * The amount of people that the Globe Theater could hold was from about 2,000 to 3,000 people.
 * All performances in the Globe Theater were in the day because there was no lighting. Most of the performances were held in the mid-afternoon, from 2~5 pm.
 * The stage of the theater was open-air, which forced actors to shout their lines and exaggerate their movements.
 * The stage was raised 5 feet off the ground, and was 43 feet wide and 27~28 feet deep.
 * Women were not allowed to act in the Globe Theater. Young men had to play the women in the plays.

=More on the Globe=

The sketch at left is perhaps one of the most important in theatrical history. In 1596, a Dutch student by the name of Johannes de Witt attended a play in London at the Swan Theatre. While there, de Witt made a drawing of the theater's interior. A friend, Arend van Buchell, copied this drawing—van Buchell's copy is the sketch rendered here—and in doing so contributed greatly to posterity. The sketch is the only surviving contemporary rendering of the interior of an Elizabethan-era public theater. As such, it's the closest thing historians have to an original picture of what the Globe may have looked like in its heyday. Shakespeare's company erected the storied Globe Theater circa 1598 in London's Bankside district. It was one of four major theaters in the area, along with the Swan, the Rose, and the Hope. The open-air, octagonal amphitheater rose three stories high with a diameter of approximately 100 feet, holding a seating capacity of up to 3,000 spectators. The rectangular stage platform on which the plays were performed was nearly 43 feet wide and 28 feet deep. This staging area probably housed trap doors in its flooring and primitive rigging overhead for various stage effects. The story of the original Globe's construction might be worthy of a Shakespearean play of its own. The Lord Chamberlain's Men had been performing in the Theater, built by James Burbage (the father of Richard Burbage) in 1576. In 1597, although the company technically owned the Theater, their lease on the land on which it stood expired. Their landlord, Giles Allen, desired to tear the Theater down. This led the company to purchase property at Blackfriars in Upper Frater Hall, which they bought for £600 and set about converting for theatrical use. Unfortunately, their aristocratic neighbors complained to the Privy Council about the plans for Blackfriars. Cuthbert Burbage tried to renegotiate the Theater lease with Giles Allen in autumn of 1598; Allen vowed to put the wood and timber of the building "to better use." Richard and Cuthbert learned of his plans and set in motion a plot of their own. It seems that the company's lease had contained a provision allowing them to dismantle the building themselves. In late December of 1598, Allen left London for the countryside. The Burbage brothers, their chief carpenter, and a party of workmen assembled at the Theater on the night of December 28. The men stripped the Theater down to its foundation, moved the materials across the Thames to Bankside, and proceeded to use them in constructing the Globe. The endeavor was not without controversy. A furious Giles Allen later sued Peter Street, the Burbage's carpenter, for £800 in damages. The courts found in favor of the Lord Chamberlain's Men and ordered Allen to desist from any further legal wrangling. The Globe would play host to some of Shakespeare's greatest works over the next decade. In an ironic epilogue, the troupe won the right in 1609 to produce plays at Blackfriars, and subsequently split time between there and the Globe. In 1613, the original Globe Theater burned to the ground when a cannon shot during a performance of //Henry VIII// ignited the thatched roof of the gallery. The company completed a new Globe on the foundations of its predecessor before Shakespeare's death. It continued operating until 1642, when the Puritans closed it down (and all the other theaters, as well as any place, for that matter, where people might be entertained). Puritans razed the building two years later in 1644 to build tenements upon the premises. The Globe would remain a ghost for the next 352 years. The foundations of the Globe were rediscovered in 1989, rekindling interest in a fitful attempt to erect a modern version of the amphitheater. Led by the vision of the late Sam Wanamaker, workers began construction in 1993 on the new theatre near the site of the original. The latest Globe Theatre was completed in 1996; Queen Elizabeth II officially opened the theater on June 12, 1997 with a production of //Henry V//. The Globe is as faithful a reproduction as possible to the Elizabethan model, seating 1,500 people between the galleries and the "groundlings." In its initial 1997 season, the theater attracted 210,000 patrons

__Work Cited__:
 * 1) [|E-notes on Globe Theater]
 * 2) [|Wikipedia on Globe Theater]
 * 3) [|Shakespeare-Literature on Globe Theater]
 * 4) []