The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare | theatres, Elizabethan and Jacobean
theatres, Elizabethan and Jacobean. The Romans built amphitheatres in Britain during their occupation, but we know of no purpose-built theatres erected between their departure and the construction of the open-air galleries and stage of the Red Lion in Stepney in 1567. More substantial than the Red Lion were James Burbage's Theatre in Shoreditch built in 1576 and Henry Lanham's nearby Curtain built in 1577, both of which echoed the circular shape of the Roman amphitheatres. Also in 1576 Richard Farrant began to use the Upper Frater of the Blackfriars Dominican monastery as a playhouse and some time in the 1570s the Paul's playhouse opened. The first playhouse south of the river was probably the one at Newington Butts, about which almost nothing is known, but in 1587 Philip Henslowe built his open-air Rose theatre on Bankside and this was joined by its neighbours the Swan (1595) and the Globe (1599). There had long been an animal-baiting ring in the south bank...
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