16th-century London
A01=Daniel Swift
Author_Daniel Swift
Category=ATD
Category=ATY
Category=DSG
Category=NH
Category=NHDL
Category=NHTB
Early modern playhouses
Elizabethan drama
eq_art-fashion-photography
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_history
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eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
Globe theatre?
James Burbage
London theatre history
Richard Burbage
Shakespeare's early career
Shakespearean theatre
The Theatre Shoreditch
Product details
- ISBN 9780300263541
- Dimensions: 156 x 216mm
- Publication Date: 22 Apr 2025
- Publisher: Yale University Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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“One of the most exciting and original books about Shakespeare that I’ve read in years.”—James Shapiro
The remarkable untold story of Shakespeare’s first theatre – the playhouse before the Globe
In 1576, in a muddy field in Shoreditch, James Burbage erected London’s first purpose-built commercial playhouse. A place of high culture and quick profit, run by cunning dreamers, the Theatre for the first time offered London’s players the chance to control what they staged. At a time when playgoing was held to be close to a sin, this entertainment factory was a flashpoint for controversy – but would also become Shakespeare’s first theatre, where he learned to ply his trade before his company moved to the Globe.
Through the life of this little-known playhouse, Daniel Swift tells the story of how Shakespeare became Shakespeare, and the Elizabethan stage began to flourish. Introducing us to the businessmen who dreamed up the Theatre, the carpenters who built it, the preachers who hated it, and the actors who performed upon its small stage, The Dream Factory recreates the world that produced Romeo and Juliet and A Midsummer Night’s Dream – and the audiences who first saw them.
The remarkable untold story of Shakespeare’s first theatre – the playhouse before the Globe
In 1576, in a muddy field in Shoreditch, James Burbage erected London’s first purpose-built commercial playhouse. A place of high culture and quick profit, run by cunning dreamers, the Theatre for the first time offered London’s players the chance to control what they staged. At a time when playgoing was held to be close to a sin, this entertainment factory was a flashpoint for controversy – but would also become Shakespeare’s first theatre, where he learned to ply his trade before his company moved to the Globe.
Through the life of this little-known playhouse, Daniel Swift tells the story of how Shakespeare became Shakespeare, and the Elizabethan stage began to flourish. Introducing us to the businessmen who dreamed up the Theatre, the carpenters who built it, the preachers who hated it, and the actors who performed upon its small stage, The Dream Factory recreates the world that produced Romeo and Juliet and A Midsummer Night’s Dream – and the audiences who first saw them.
Daniel Swift is associate professor in English at Northeastern University London. He is the author of The Bughouse: The Poetry, Politics and Madness of Ezra Pound, Shakespeare’s Common Prayers and Bomber County. He writes for the New York Times, New Statesman and Spectator.
