M.J. Rose

Hear ye! Did you catch this news when it was first announced? This one seems to have slipped through our fingers!

 

 

Shakespeare’s Curtain theatre unearthed in east London

 

Theatre where Romeo and Juliet was first performed is rediscovered in Shoreditch centuries after it was dismantled

 

(The Guardian)

 

“Well preserved remains of Shakespeare’s original “wooden O” stage, the Curtain theatre where Henry V and Romeo and Juliet were first performed, have been discovered in a yard in east London.

 

The Curtain theatre in Shoreditch preceded the Globe on the Thames, showcasing several of Shakespeare’s most famous plays. But it was dismantled in the 17th century and its precise location lost.

 

Now part of the gravelled yard in Shoreditch where the groundlings stood, ate, gossiped and watched the plays, and foundation walls on which the tiers of wooden galleries were built have been uncovered in what was open ground for 500 years while the surrounding district became one of the most densely built in London.

 

Experts from Museum of London Archaeology (MoLA) have found two sections of exterior wall, crucial for giving the dimensions of the theatre, and are confident of revealing more as the site is cleared for redevelopment. An outer yard paved with sheep knuckle bones could date from the theatre or slightly later housing….”

 

For the rest click here.

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