1. Early modern public theaters were located outside of the city limits (across the Thames River) with the bear baiting and the brothels in what was called “the Liberties.” Twenty three professional theaters (seventeen public and six private ones) were built in or near London between 1567-1642 (Kinney 10).

3. The cost of the Globe, built in 1598 after the lease on James Burbage’s the Theater (the second London playhouse after the Red Lion) expired, was shared by eight men: Cuthbert and Richard Burbage owned 25% each, and five actors (Augustine Phillips, Thomas Pope, John Heminges, William Kempe, and William Shakespeare) owned 10% each (Kinney 9). Shakespeare earned money as both a shareholder and as an actor.

4. Arthur Kinney, author of Shakespeare By Stages, explains that “All of these public buildings, rounded or square, were based on the Roman amphitheater, with three galleries of spectators holding 1,500 or more people and a yard which could stand another 1,000” (4).

5. 6 This 1596 drawing of the Swan Theatre by Arnoldus Buchelius (originally sketched by Johannes de Witt) is the only early modern image we have of the insides of the polygonal public theaters like the Globe. We do have several excellent descriptions, including these observations by Thomas Platter in 1599: daily at two in the afternoon, London has two, sometimes three plays running in different places, competing with each other, and those which play best obtain most spectators. The playhouses are so constructed that they play on a raised platform, so that everyone has a good view. There are different galleries and places, however, where the seating is better and more comfortable and therefore more expensive. For whoever cares to stand below only plays one English penny, but if he wishes to sit he enters by another door, and plays another penny, while if he desires to sit in the most comfortable seats which are cushioned, where he not only sees everything well, but can also be seen, then he pays yet another English penny at another door. And during the performance food and drink are carried round the audience so that for what one cares to pay one may also have refreshment. The actors are most expensively and elaborately costumed; for it is the English usage for eminent lords or knights at their decease to bequeath and leave almost the best of their clothes to their serving men, which it is unseemly for the latter to wear, so that they offer them then for sale for a small sum to the actors. (qtd in Kinney 6)

6. Visscher's panoramic view of London c. 1616

7. This floor plan of an early modern theater shows that round “Globe” shape, the yard where groundlings or standlings stood for the performances, the three tiered gallery for the wealthier playgoers described by Thomas Platter, the thrust stage with a trapdoor on the floor, and the tiring house with two or three stage entrances. Theater historians have reconstructed the interior of the early modern stage by examining the requirements of early modern plays, which needed to be written with particular spaces in mind, and with the help of diaries such as Platter’s.

8. The heavens The galleries The thrust stage The main stage doors The yard Probably third stage door (also a possible extended stage) Pillars (for hiding, overhearing) The upper stage (rear balcony) Heaven’s trapdoor Trapdoor

9. This is an image of the heavens from the reconstructed Globe.