Building    From 1577  To 1642

Curtain Theatre

Categories: Theatre

This, the second English purpose-built playhouse was erected very close to the first, The Theatre, and run by the same man, Burbage.  Not named for the modern drape on a proscenium arch, but for its proximity to Curtain Close, a place named itself after the nearby London Wall. Long plain sections of wall are still known to those in the know as "curtain walls".

Here, in this "wooden O", Shakespeare performed and Henry V was staged. Ceased operating somewhere between 1622 and the Civil War, 1642. In 2008, the Museum of London unearthed the footings of the Theatre and a new theatre is set to be built on the site.

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This section lists the memorials where the subject on this page is commemorated:
Curtain Theatre

Commemorated ati

Curtain Theatre - Curtain Road

On this site stood The Curtain Theatre (1577 - 1599) William Shakespeare firs...

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Curtain Theatre - Hewett Street

Near this site stood The Curtain Theatre, 1577 - c.1627, second English publi...

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Other Subjects

Edgar Wallace

Edgar Wallace

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2 memorials
Henry Fielding

Henry Fielding

Novelist, playwright. Born Somerset. Half-brother to Sir John Fielding. Lived in Bow Street and Essex Street. Play: The Miser. Novels: Joseph Andrews, Tom Jones. As magistrate he carried out a numb...

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2 memorials
George Edwardes

George Edwardes

Theatre manager. Born Lincolnshire.  His cousins were Irish theatre managers which enabled him to start in the business.  He moved to London in the late 1870s and worked for D'Oyly Carte.  In 1885 ...

Person, Theatre

1 memorial
Golders Green Hippodrome

Golders Green Hippodrome

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1 memorial
Dame Joan Plowright, CBE

Dame Joan Plowright, CBE

Actor. Born Lincolnshire. Married Laurence Olivier in 1961 and survived as his widow in 1989.

Person, Cinema, Theatre

1 memorial