The Globe Theatre
- The Globe TheatreA world-renowned theatre, education centre, and cultural landmark, located on the bank of the River Thames in London, UK. Some tours, events and spaces are open onsite, and we are always open online, providing Shakespeare for all through digital events and resources.
- The Globe Theatre- Credo ReferenceBuilt of materials salvaged from an earlier playhouse called simply The Theatre , the Globe was half-owned by actor Richard Burbage and his brother Cuthbert. Several members of the acting company called the Chamberlain's Men, one of whose principal members after 1594 was William Shakespeare
Shakespeare and His Theatre: The Globe
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A fifth of London’s population in the year 1600 were regular playgoers. Examination of the Globe Theatre shows where they stood, how the stage was constructed, and how the special effects so beloved by the audience were achieved, from thunder and lightning to fairies flying through the air and ghosts emerging from the earth. Rehearsals were minimal and there was no producer or director—just the play, the actors, and the audience of two to three thousand, which could be kept under control only by the interest of the play itself. The program points out that Shakespeare himself wrote the plays to be adaptable to different theaters when the company was on tour, and to different audiences. (28 minutes)
Source: Films on Demand
Perspectives
Globe: Life in Shakespeare's London
A fascinating portrait of life in Shakespeare's London, as seen from the theatrical perspective by popular historian Catharine Arnold. The life of William Shakespeare, Britain's greatest dramatist, is inextricably linked with the history of London. Together, the great writer and the great city came of age and confronted triumph and tragedy. Triumph came when Shakespeare's company, the Chamberlain's Men, opened the Globe playhouse on Bankside in 1599, under the patronage of Queen Elizabeth I. Tragedy touched the lives of many of his contemporaries, from fellow playwright Christopher Marlowe to the disgraced Earl of Essex, while London struggled against the ever-present threat of riots, rebellions and outbreaks of plague. Globe takes readers on a sweeping tour of London through Shakespeare's life and work, as Catharine Arnold recounts in fascinating detail how acting came of age. We learn about James Burbage, founder of the original Theatre in Shoreditch, who carried timbers across the Thames to build the Globe among the bear-gardens and brothels of Bankside, and of the terrible night in 1613 when the theatre caught fire during a performance of King Henry VIII. Rebuilt, the Globe continued to stand as a monument to Shakespeare's genius until 1642 when it was destroyed on the orders of Oliver Cromwell. And finally we learn how 300 years later, Shakespeare's Globe opened once more upon the Bankside, to great acclaim, rising like a phoenix from the flames. Arnold has created a vivid portrait of Shakespeare and his London from the bard's own plays and contemporary sources, combining a novelist's eye for detail with a historian's grasp of his unique contribution to the development of the English theatre. This is a definitive and compelling portrait of Shakespeare, London, the man and the myth.
The Oxford Handbook of Shakespeare and Performance
Shakespearean performance criticism has undergone a sea change in recent years, and strong tides of discovery are continuing to shift the contours of the discipline. The essays in this volume, written by scholars from around the world, reveal how these critical cross-currents are influencingthe ways we now view Shakespeare in performance.The volume is organised in four Parts. Part I interrogates how Shakespeare continues to achieve contemporaneity for Western audiences by exploring modes of performance, acting styles, and aesthetic choices regarded as experimental. Part II tackles the burgeoning field of reception: how and whyaudiences respond to performances as they do, or actors to the conditions in which they perform; how immersive productions turn spectators into actors; how memory and cognition shape and reshape the performances we think we saw. Part III addresses the ways in which revolutions in technology havealtered our views of Shakespeare, both through the mediums of film and sound recording, and through digitalizing processes that have generated a profound reconsideration of what performance is and how it is accessed. The final Part grapples with intercultural Shakespeare, considering not onlymatters of cultural hegemony and appropriation in a "global" importation of non-Western productions to Europe and North America, but also how Shakespeare has been made "local" in performances staged or filmed in African, Asian, and Latin American countries. Together, these ground-breaking essaysattest to the richness and diversity of Shakespearean performance criticism as it is practiced today, and they point the way to critical continents not yet explored.