The new Globe Theatre
© topfoto.co.uk
The Globe Theatre was the 20-sided open-air playhouse designed in 1599, where Shakespeare worked and where many of his greatest plays were first performed.
The first Globe was destroyed by fire in 1613, but by 1614 it had been rebuilt and reopened. After closing again in 1642, it was soon demolished.
A reconstruction of the original Globe was completed in 1997, and has become one of the most recognisable silhouettes on the South Bank skyline.
Biography
The theatre began in ancient Greece, and reached one of its highest peaks in Elizabethan England. Read about the building of the original Globe and that of its successors here
Features
Who were the patrons of the Elizabethan theatre? Who were Shakespeare's rivals among writers for the stage? We look at the birth of the Shakespeare industry, and trace the publication of the first ever edition of the plays
