The Globe Theater (task two)

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What was the Globe Theater? The Globe Theater was a theater in London associated with William Shakespeare. It was built in 1599 by Shakespeare's playing company, the Lord Chamberlain's Men, and was destroyed by fire on 29 June 1613. A second Globe Theater was built on the same site by June 1614 and closed in 1642.

Popular playhouses at the time:  

-The Theater

-The Swan Theater

-The Rose Theater
-The Fortune Playhouse

-The Curtain Theater

-The Blackfriars Theater
-The Red Lion Theater

Layout: Three stories of open air amphitheater, approximately 100 ft in diameter and housed up to 3000 spectators. It is suggested that it was a 20-sided polygon.

At the base of the stage there was an area called the pit where people could stand on the earth floor to watch the performance for one penny.

There were three levels of stadium style seats.

43 feet in width, 27 feet in depth and was raised about 5 feet off the ground. On this stage, there was a trap door for use by performers to enter.

There was a balcony over the stage for musicians and for some scenes that needed it such as Romeo and Juliet.

The roof that was over top of the stage was called the “heavens” and was painted with clouds and blue sky, there were also trap doors there for people to repel down from ropes and harnesses.

Cost: If you watched from the pit it was only one penny but about 2 or 3 more pennies to watch while sitting in one of the three galleries.

Lighting: There was no lighting in the globe theater during the day because there was no roof and all the natural light from the sun provided them with what they needed. At night however they would have used candles and torches to light up the stage.

Other Info: Most of the plays performed at the globe theater were by William Shakespeare and there were over 30 of them.

There were many acting companies that performed at the globe theater mostly owned by Shakespeare himself, such as the “Lord Chamberlain” or “King James”

As soon as the play was finished being written it was produced – printing followed by productions. 

Competing theaters would send people over to the globe theater to copy down the play so that they could perform at their theater; this is why there are different versions of Shakespeare’s plays.

 The Modern Globe