Shakespeare's Globe
— — the open round, under a London sky.
Not only on a wall.
“A timber O on the south bank of the Thames, two hundred and thirty metres from where the first Globe stood in 1599. The roof is the only thatch in central London since the Great Fire, and the yard is still open to the weather. Groundlings stand for five pounds; the galleries fill above them. Plays run April to October in daylight and rain alike, then the indoor Sam Wanamaker Playhouse takes over by candlelight through winter.
Shakespeare's Globe, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Shakespeare's Globe is a working reconstruction of the 1599 Globe Theatre, built on Bankside in the London Borough of Southwark on the south bank of the Thames, about two hundred and thirty metres from the original site. The project was founded by the American actor and director Sam Wanamaker in 1970 and the new theatre opened in 1997, sixteen years after his death. The building is the only thatched roof in central London since the Great Fire of 1666 — permitted by special exception with modern fire protection underneath. The complex now includes the indoor Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, opened in 2014 and lit by beeswax candles.
The outdoor Globe runs a daylight season from late April to mid-October, with afternoon and evening performances in rain or shine. Yard tickets — standing room as a groundling, the same five-pound price the project has held since opening — keep the original economic shape of the Elizabethan house. Seated tickets in the three covered galleries climb from roughly twenty pounds. The Sam Wanamaker Playhouse takes the indoor winter season from November to April and is lit entirely by beeswax candles. Southwark tube and Blackfriars are each about a ten-minute walk; the Millennium Bridge lands almost at the door.
The reconstruction was carried out as an experiment in Tudor methods. Green oak timbers were cut and pegged by traditional joinery, the walls finished in lime plaster over oak laths, and the roof laid in Norfolk water-reed thatch by hand. The yard is open to the sky and the galleries are unheated. The building seats roughly 1,400 with another 700 standing in the yard — close to the historical capacity of around 3,000 once allowance is made for modern safety code. The dimensions follow the 1989 excavation of the foundations of the Rose, the nearest surviving sister playhouse.