BEYOND THE GLOBE
Today’s Globe Theatre during
a performance of Henry VIII, 2010.
The faithful recreation of the original 1599
Globe Theatre, open since 1997, has
revolutionised people’s ideas of what a theatre
could and should be.
However, our founder Sam Wanamaker’s vision for
the Shakespeare Globe project did not only include
the open-air stage of the ‘wooden O’. The Globe
Theatre - one of the most iconic and atmospheric
performance venues in London - is only half
the story.
I
A Second Stage
The exterior of the future Sam Wanamaker Playhouse,
seen from New Globe Walk, 2012.
It was always the plan to build an indoor playhouse
as a complement to the open-air Globe stage.
After all, Shakespeare wrote plays for both indoor
and outdoor theatres.
The outer structure of the indoor playhouse already
exists: you can see it from New Globe Walk.
Now, work is in progress on its interior.
II
Shakespeare’s
Indoor Playhouse
This detail from Wenceslaus Hollar’s Long View of
London, printed in 1647, shows both the second Globe
Theatre (marked ‘Beere bayting h[ouse]’) on Bankside,
and, across the Thames, the building that housed
Burbage’s Blackfriars playhouse.
In 1596, James Burbage purchased part of the old
Dominican priory at Blackfriars and converted it
into an enclosed playhouse for performances by
candlelight.
Whether or not Shakespeare had direct influence
in the design is uncertain, but it would have been
developed with the presentation of his plays in
mind.
iii
AN INFLUENTIAL Stage
Pages of The Tempest, The Winter’s Tale and
Cymbeline, as printed in the First Folio of
Shakespeare’s collected plays, 1623.
Some of Shakespeare’s greatest plays were written
for indoor spaces like the Blackfriars: entirely
different from open-air theatre such as the Theatre
in Shoreditch, the Rose and the Globe.
Details about the physical structure of the
Blackfriars Theatre are limited and often
ambiguous, but as Professor Andrew Gurr states,
any complete study of Shakespeare’s plays ‘must
take account of this influential stage’.
iV
‘This Our HemispheAre’
Theatre plan by Sebastiano Serlio
(1475-1554).
Drawing of a Roman theatre by
Andrea Palladio (1508-80).
Many theoretical reconstructions of the Blackfriars
theatre have included a rectangular plan, following
the right-angles of the room, but among the plays
written for the space, Ben Jonson’s The Magnetic
Lady refers to ‘caves and wedges’, corresponding
to the cavea and cunei into which round ancient
Roman theatres were divided.
This might explain a description of the Blackfriars
audience by Sir William Davenant (1606-68):
Conceive now too, how much, how oft each Eare
Hath surfeited in this our Hemispheare,
With various, pure, eternal Wit...’
However, no plans for the Blackfriars playhouse are
known and so we cannot be sure of its design.
V
PLANS FOR
an indoor PLAYHOUSE
In 1964, plans for an indoor playhouse were
discovered among drawings in the collection of
Worcester College Library in Oxford. At first they
were thought to have been drawn by Inigo Jones
(1573-1652), the King’s surveyor and first theatre
designer, but they are now attributed to Jones’
student John Webb (1611-72) and are dated to
around 1660.
The identity of this playhouse is unclear, as is
whether the building was ever constructed, but the
drawings provide us with a very clear starting point
and inspiration for constructing an indoor Jacobean
playhouse: a space that Shakespeare would have
recognised in the latter part of his career.
Plans for an indoor playhouse, c.1660, by
kind permission of the Provost and Fellows of
Worcester College, Oxford.
VI
Although dated to around 1660, many scholars
believe that the auditorium, shown above, reflects
an early playhouse design: an architectural layout
consistent with late Elizabethan and Jacobean
playhouse spaces, such as the curvature of the
galleries and the boxes on the side of the stage.
We can see that there’s a musician’s gallery above
the stage, upper stage level seating, and three doors
leading from the stage into the ‘tiring house’ behind.
These features are unmistakeably associated with a
theatre tradition that dates before 1625.
Plans for an indoor playhouse, c.1660, by
kind permission of the Provost and Fellows of
Worcester College, Oxford.
VII
The Story so Far
Sam Wanamaker, shortly before his death in 1993,
with the 1990 architects’ model of the Shakespeare
Globe project, including the Globe Theatre and the
indoor playhouse behind it on the left.
When Sam Wanamaker first began the Globe
project, it was his vision to build an outdoor theatre
and and an indoor playhouse so that the Globe
company, as in Shakespeare’s time, would play
both in the summer and the winter.
The Globe Theatre opened in 1997, but the indoor
playhouse was left only as a shell, divided and
partitioned into rooms for education workshops and
rehearsals. However, in 2010 the Globe opened its
purpose-built education and rehearsal centre, the
Sackler Studios, allowing workshops and rehearsals
to move there, and leaving the indoor playhouse
shell to be renovated and completed.
VIII
The Sam Wanamaker
Playhouse
Since 2008, the Globe’s Architecture Research
Group, consisting of academics, theatre artists,
architects and other specialists, has used the
Worcester College drawings, painstaking research
and knowledge of the wonderful repertory of
plays themselves to create a design which should
be as historically accurate a rendition of an early
playhouse as can be found anywhere in the world.
Named after the Globe’s founder, the
Sam Wanamaker Playhouse will be a Jacobean
archetype, within which Shakespeare or any of his
contemporaries would have felt at home making
theatre.
Computer-generated image of the
Sam Wanamaker Playhouse,
courtesy of Allies and Morrison architects.
IX
The Sam Wanamaker Playhouse will be like
no other, with an oak structure, pit seating and
exquisite carvings adorning it - and during
performances it will be lit by candles.
This new playhouse will give us a unique chance
to experiment with the stagecraft of the early
17th century, with lighting, costume and music.
It should, like the Globe, provide new insights into
how so many of the plays of that gloriously fertile
era were written and staged.
Computer-generated image of the
Sam Wanamaker Playhouse,
courtesy of Allies and Morrison architects.
Two full-size trial bays constructed at the workshop
of McCurdy & Co. in Berkshire, 2012.
X
The playhouse will seat 340 people with two tiers
of galleried seating and a pit seating area. The
audience will sit on both sides of the stage, and
behind the actors in the musician’s gallery.
Computer-generated image of the
Sam Wanamaker Playhouse,
courtesy of Allies and Morrison architects.
The first programmed season of work will begin in
January 2014. From then on we will offer theatre
performances throughout the year, as well as having
another space to allow Globe Education to expand
its renowned research and education programmes
during the summer months.
xi
A Work in Progress
The number of visitors to the Globe centre to date
has far exceeded original expectations, with over a
million people coming every year, so building work
is in progress now to transform the foyer spaces
which serve both the Globe Theatre and the
Sam Wanamaker Playhouse.
You may experience some noise from the building
work during your visit, but our new foyer will be
open in time for the Globe Theatre’s next season of
plays beginning on 23 April 2013.
Foyer transformation work in progress,
January 2013.
A sketch of the transformed foyer,
courtesy of Allies and Morrison architects.
xii
You can help us build the Sam Wanamaker
Playhouse. We have £1million left to raise.
We have received incredible support to raise
over £6.5million towards our £7.5million target.
To help us on our way, a generous donor has
pledged to match every pound given to the project,
doubling your donation.
Donate by text
Text BARD13 followed by
the £ sign and the amount
(£1, £2, £3, £4, £5 or £10)
to 70070
For example, if you’d
like to donate £10 text
BARD13£10
You can donate any
amount up to £10.
Donate in person
Visit our Friends Desk at
the end of your tour.
Donate online
At bit.ly/SWT2013
Donate by naming a seat
Seat naming costs £3,000
and can be spread over
several years.
Call us on 020 7902 1457
VISIT US AT BIT.LY/SWT2013
Refacing of brickwork on the exterior of
the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse nears completion,
January 2013.
The Globe’s patron, HRH The Prince Philip,
discusses the plan for the playhouse with
Neil Constable (Chief Executive of the
Shakespeare Globe Trust) and Roger Parry
(Chairman), October 2011.
Preparatory work in progress in the basement
beneath what will become the stage of the
Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, January 2013.
Block-work, on which the playhouse’s timber frame
will sit, is nearly complete, January 2013