All the world’s a stage
“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” – William Shakespeare
In 1599, the Globe Theatre was built in London, England, for the acting company of William Shakespeare. The theatre became famous because Shakespeare’s plays were performed there. Shakespeare designed many of his plays — including “Hamlet”, “Othello”, “King Lear”, “Macbeth”, “Twelfth Night”, and “All’s Well That Ends Well” — for performance, in the Globe Theatre. Although the original Globe Theatre was torn down in the 17th century, a replica of the theater was built in the late 20th century.
The Globe Theatre could hold an audience of perhaps about 3,000 people, with 1,000 people standing in the central yard (or pit) around the stage to watch the play. There were three levels of seating in the theater’s galleries, with wooden benches raking upward toward the rear. A few rooms were reserved for the most privileged on the stage balcony itself. The yard had no roof; when it rained, the audience in the yard could pay more and take shelter in the lowest gallery.
While there are drawings of the outside of the theatre, historians do not really know what the inside of the Globe looked like. Unravel the image below to get an idea of what the original Theatre looked like.
In 1613 the Globe Theatre burned to the ground but it was reopened in 1614. The English Civil War broke out in 1642, and two years later the Globe Theatre was pulled down. A modern reconstruction of the Globe, named “Shakespeare’s Globe”, opened in 1997 not too far from the site of the original theatre.
The following images show what the outside and inside of the modern Globe Theatre looks like. Solve them for a better look.