The Chamberlain's Company, who built the Globe, formed in 1594. At the time, it was one of only two licensed acting companies in London. Among the eight actors in the group were Shakespeare and Richard Burgage, (who was another notable English actor). Of the eight, only six donated the funds used to build the theatre. The Chamberlain's Company later changed its name to the King's Company when James took over the English throne.
The Globe was the most important structure to Shakespeare's drama because most of his plays were written to be performed on the stage of the Globe. Those plays written by Shakespeare under the context of performance at the Globe include: Julius Caesar, Hamlet, Twelfth Night, Othello, Measure for Measure, King Lear, MacBeth, Anthony and Cleopatra, Pericles, Prince of Tyre, and Cymbeline.
Plays were important to the residents of London because they were an efficient way of getting a message to many people and entertain them at the same time. Theatres commonly drew thousands of people, who attended to see the supposed fictitious plays often with a main message or moral.
Anyone, even a common street individual could attend a play in the Globe, but his or her seats were on the ground in front of the stage, which was considered a poor place from which to view a play. The wealthier audience members sat in box seats around the inside of the ring wall of the theatre. The peasants earned the name "groundlings" because of the fact that they had to watch from the ground.
The architecture of the Globe theatre was carefully designed to bring out the best in any play performed in it. The blueprints took into account the way shadows would fall throughout the year, in regard to both the stage and the audience.
Tragically, the original Globe burned down in 1613 due to a cannon shot used as a prop during a performance of Henry VIII. It was soon rebuilt, though, and remained open on its original foundations until the Puritans closed it in 1642 and the Globe II was torn down two years later to make room for housing.
The foundation remained buried until the mid-twentieth century, until one man, Sam Wanamaker, made it his goal to bring the Globe back. Its foundations were not discovered until 1989. Once they were found, they were once again to eventually be the globe theatre. This latest Globe Theatre was completed in 1996, and was officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II in May of 1997 with a production of Henry V. The Globe is as close a reproduction as possible they could construct to the Elizabethan model. It seats 1,500 people between the galleries and the "groundlings." In its initial 1997 season, the theatre attracted 210,000 patrons.
