AudlemOnline Logo Link

On this day – June 29th

29th June 2019 @ 6:06am – by Webteam
Back home  /  News  /  On this day – June 29th
default

The Globe Theatre burns down

The Globe was owned by actors who were also shareholders in the Lord Chamberlain's Men, including Richard Burbage and William Shakespeare.

The Globe was built in 1599 using timber from an earlier theatre, The Theatre, which had been built by Richard Burbage's father, James Burbage, in Shoreditch in 1576. The new theatre was larger than the building it replaced, with the older timbers being reused as part of the new structure; the Globe was not merely the old Theatre newly set up at Bankside.

The first performance for which a firm record remains was Jonson's Every Man out of His Humour--with its first scene welcoming the "gracious and kind spectators"--at the end of the year.

On 29 June 1613, the Globe Theatre went up in flames during a performance of Henry VIII. A theatrical cannon, set off during the performance, misfired, igniting the wooden beams and thatching. According to one of the few surviving documents of the event, no one was hurt except a man whose burning breeches were put out with a bottle of ale. It was rebuilt in the following year.

Like all the other theatres in London, the Globe was closed down by the Puritans in 1642. It was pulled down in 1644-45; the commonly cited document dating the act to 15 April 1644 has been identified as a probable forgery--to make room for tenements.

A modern reconstruction of the theatre, named "Shakespeare's Globe", opened in 1997, with a production of Henry V. It is an academic approximation of the original design, based on available evidence of the 1599 and 1614 buildings, and is located approximately 750 feet from the site of the original theatre.


This article is from our news archive. As a result pictures or videos originally associated with it may have been removed and some of the content may no longer be accurate or relevant.

Get In Touch

AudlemOnline is powered by our active community.

Please send us your news and views using the button below:

Village Map

© 2005-2024 AudlemOnline
Visitors Today 20 / Mar 20,814