Shakespeare’s Globe is to become a year-round operation by 2013, it was announced today, as plans were revealed to complete an indoor Jacobean theatre next to the existing outdoor space.
The new theatre will complete the vision of the Globe’s founder, Sam Wanamaker, who incorporated a site for an indoor theatre into the blueprint of the Globe complex. When the outdoor Globe opened in 1997 the indoor theatre was left as a shell and has since been used as a rehearsal and education space.
Major construction work will begin in November 2012 to turn this shell into a complete recreation of an English Renaissance indoor theatre, with the Globe’s first ever winter indoor season set to open there in winter 2013.
The 320-seat venue, with two tiers of gallery seating and a pit area, is based on designs held in Worcester College, Oxford, for a 17th century indoor theatre. Believed to be drawn by Renaissance architect Inigo Jones or his protégé John Webb, the designs depict a venue similar to the Blackfriars theatre and are the earliest plans for an English theatre in existence.
The new theatre will allow Shakespeare’s Globe to explore the plays that Shakespeare wrote specifically for indoor spaces – including The Tempest and The Winter’s Tale – as well as other works in the Elizabethan repertoire, while also furthering its understanding of theatre practices in England’s earliest indoor theatres.
In a statement, actress Zoe Wanamaker, daughter of founder Sam, stressed the importance of creating an indoor theatre at the Globe, saying: “The whole idea of the theatre world in which Shakespeare and his contemporaries worked is incomplete without it.”
Fundraising for the estimated £7.5-8million project begins in earnest next month, though Globe Artistic Director Dominic Dromgoole revealed he had already secured a donation of $1.5million from a generous US philanthropist. In keeping with the Globe itself, which is run without public subsidy, the building work is expected to be entirely self-funded by the Globe and private donors.
The announcement of the new theatre comes as the Globe’s new purpose-built education centre prepares to open this spring, freeing up the theatre shell for restoration.
The building plans add to an already busy 2012. In addition to its regular summer season, the Globe has announced a Shakespeare festival which will see all 38 of Shakespeare’s plays performed by international visiting companies, each in a different language, for six weeks from 23 April.
CB