The Globe Theatre

   The Globe Theatre was a theatre in Maiden Lane, London, erected in 1599, in which many of Shakespeare's plays were acted for the first time. It was a high, eight-sided, wooden affair, with a stage but without scenery. It was covered with a roof of straw thatch. In the prologue of Henry V, Shakespeare refers to the building as "this wooden O." It accommodated 2,000 spectators, and was uncommonly large for the time. Seats varied in price from two pence to half a crown. Shakespeare was allowed a salary and a share of the profits.
   On June 29, 1613, during the performance of the play of Henry VIII with immense pomp, cannon were fired by way of welcome at the entry of the supposed Henry. "Some of the paper or other stuff wherewith one of them was stopped did light on the thatch, where, being thought at first but an idle smoak, and their eyes more attentive to the show, it kindled inwardly and ran round like a train, consuming within less than an hour the whole house to the ground." The chronicler of the event deemed it worth while to record as the exciting incident of the occasion, that "one man had his breeches set on fire," but that "a provident wit put it out with bottled ale." The theatre was rebuilt but the new edifice never acquired the fame of that in which Shakespeare scored triumph after triumph. It was pulled down finally in 1642.
   A modern reconstruction of the Globe Theatre, named "Shakespeare's Globe", opened in 1997 approximately 750 feet (230 m) from the site of the original theatre.