Curtain Theatre

thumb|upright=1.5|The Curtain is at the top right of this 1917 map of London showing theatres 1576–1666

The Curtain Theatre was an Elizabethan playhouse located in Hewett Street, Shoreditch (within the modern London Borough of Hackney), just outside the City of London. It opened in 1577, and continued staging plays until 1624.

The Curtain was built some south of London's first playhouse, The Theatre, which had opened a year before, in 1576. It was called the "Curtain" because it was located near a plot of land called Curtain Close, which derived its name in turn from its proximity to the walls of Holywell Priory, a curtain wall being a section of wall between two bastions.), Henry IV Part I and Part II. The Lord Chamberlain's Men also performed Ben Jonson's Every Man in His Humour here in 1598, with Shakespeare in the cast. Later that same year Jonson gained a certain notoriety by killing actor Gabriel Spencer in a duel in nearby Hoxton Fields.

The Lord Chamberlain's Men departed the Curtain when the Globe Theatre, which they built to replace the Theatre, was ready for use in 1599. For seven years Henry Lanman (owner of the Curtain) had an agreement with James Burbage (owner of the Theatre) that all profit would be shared between them. This deal is how many believe Lanman was able to afford to open the Curtain, the rest is all very unclear. J. Leeds Barroll focuses in Shakespeare studies: An annual gathering of Research, Criticism and Reviews on the fact that Henry Lanman had offered the Curtain as an easer to James Burbage, proprietor of the Theatre. Thereby, he assumes that Lanman's business, the Curtain, must have been doing as well as Burbage's business, the Theatre, since both, Lanman and Burbage, had agreed on a pooling arrangement for seven years in 1585, to pool profits. As far as is known, Lanman ran the Curtain as a private concern for the first phase of its existence; he died in 1606 and it is assumed by Edmund Chambers that it had been re-arranged into a shareholder's enterprise before his death at some point. Thomas Pope, one of the Lord Chamberlain's Men, owned a share in the Curtain and left it to his heirs in his last will and testament in 1603. King's Men member John Underwood did the same in 1624. The fact that both of these shareholders belonged to Shakespeare's company may indicate that the re-organization of the Curtain occurred when the Lord Chamberlain's Men were acting there; otherwise, it would have been very unwise of Burbage to pool profits if he was doing better in the first place. Thus, the suggestion is given that both proprietors were doing equal business. Burbage's father James had shares in the theatre at the time of his death. The Curtain was named in John Stow's Survey of London in 1598, but was not listed in the 1603 edition. In 1600, the Privy Council tried unsuccessfully to shut down the Curtain theatre, However, a commemorative plaque was erected at 18 Hewett Street.

In 2012, archaeologists from MOLA (Museum of London Archaeology) announced that they had discovered the remains of the theatre during trial excavations. In 2013 plans were submitted to develop the site with a 40-storey tower of 400 apartments, plus a Shakespeare museum, 250-seat outdoor auditorium and park, with the archaeological remains visible in a glass enclosure.

In May 2016, excavators announced that the theatre was probably an adaptation of an existing structure, in the form of a rectangle measuring 22×25 metres, rather than being round or polygonal. The theatre had timber galleries with mid and upper areas for wealthier audience members, and a courtyard made from compacted gravel for those with less to spend. The galleries were straight. In November 2016, a tunnel structure – accessed by doors on either end of the stage – was unearthed, which would have allowed actors to exit from one side and come on again from the other without being seen by the audience. Fragments of ceramic money boxes were found, which would have been used to collect entry fees from theatregoers, before being taken to an office to be smashed and the money counted: this office was known as the "box office", which is the origin of the term in use today.

Glass beads and pins were unearthed along with drinking vessels and clay pipes. The team also came across a mount and a token, as well as personal items, including a bone comb.

In August 2019 the structural remains and below-ground deposits were designated a Scheduled Monument. The high-rise residential tower block on the site is named "The Stage"; and the two adjacent low-rise office blocks "The Bard" and "The Hewett".

In popular culture

A reconstruction of the Curtain Theatre is used in the 1998 film Shakespeare in Love.

The theatre is the main setting for the jukebox musical & Juliet, which takes place during the first performance of Romeo and Juliet.

Curtain Theatre

In popular culture

See also

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