London’s Curtain playhouse is famous for its association with William Shakespeare who is known to have performed there himself. But what about the origins of this theatre and Tudor London’s other playhouses? Who were the players that brought the Curtain to life? And just how did London’s original theatreland spring to life? In this blog, archaeologist Brigid Geist explores London, the Curtain, and Burbage.

In our last post we discussed the differences between a Shakespearean theatre and a playhouse and promised to discuss the architecture of some of the pioneer acting venues and the players involved.

Before the excavations of the Rose in Southwark and the Theatre in Shoreditch much of what was written about the form of Elizabethan playhouses was little more than conjecture. While both were discovered to be polygonal in shape, and open galleried, others were not. Although the London playhouses were quite a bit smaller than some contemporary examples on the Continent, there are some similarities. In Italy, for example, tournament playhouses, such as the Teatro di Sabbionetta and the Teatro del Torneo, employed a rectangular, galleried, open floored and roofed, design. The corrales of the Spanish Golden Age also displayed galleried, open roofed structures. Many other architectural features were based on Italian Renaissance and Greek Classical styles, like the pillars which we see in many depictions of 16th century theatres and playhouses.