May 7, 2016 6 min read

Editor’s note: This article originally ran Sept. 19, 1993

LONDON – Stratford-Upon-Avon has the Shakespeare market sewn up – thatched roofs, Tudor buildings, quaintness on every corner. But Shakespeare, if he really did write all those plays, made his name not in a little backwater Village in Warwickshlre, but in London, the swinging metropolis of the 16th century.

It was at the Globe Theater that his greatest plays were first staged. So when two American tourists saw the “Shakespeare Globe Theater Museum” noted on not one, but two maps of London, we decided to go for it. After all, Sue Gibbon and I studied the Bard off and on from junior high through college. We memorized the immortal speeches in Macbeth, burned the midnight oil sweating over term papers. As adults, we subscribed to the Three Rivers Shakespeare Festival.

Shakespeare – the poet, playwright and actor – still holds a magic unequalled by any other author in the English language. And there was the Shakespeare Globe Theater Museum. Right on the map in the guide book. And in the theater guide brochure. But there was no entry in the guide book. Should it have made us suspicious? Maybe, but we were doing Parliament, Westminster Abbey and fish and chips that day anyway, so the Globe Theater Museum would simply be a short trip off the beaten path.

Maps in hand, we started planning our route. We consulted with at least two locals: Cab to Egham, train from Egham to Richmond, district line underground from Richmond to Westminster, head east two miles, cross the Thames, wind up in Southwark. (No, don’t say South-Wark, they told us. It’s suth-erk, with a barely discernible “r.”) Apparently, it’s on the site of the original theater. The foundation was discovered in 1989 during excavation of another building.

Yes, it all worked out. Get off the underground at Westminster and Big Ben is right there. So’s the Abbey. (A statue of Abraham Lincoln, of all people, stands in between.) After our late lunch, we set off to conquer the Globe. Which bridge should we use to cross the river? Luckily, at a busy intersection beside Parliament, we spied a uniformed man wearing a badge that said “traffic warden.”

I don’t think he gets a lot of requests for information about finding the Globe Theater. His maps were much more detailed than ours but didn’t show the Globe. He was able to tell us how to get to Southwark. The first leg involved taking the underground to a stop called Blackfriars (Oooh! How Shakespearean!)

That we did, and we strolled across the adjacent bridge, past a big, modern newspaper office. The traffic warden had said to take the first left once we crossed the bridge. We did, but there was no street sign. Pointing to our maps, we asked a lady for directions. She said she didn’t have her glasses, but said we were on the right track.

The search goes on

After a few blocks, we came upon a little news stand and convenience store and decided to ask the proprietor about the Globe Theater Museum. He referred us to the florist around the comer, and listened as were pointed down the street. Park Street! That was it. The key was learning we had to walk past a red brick behemoth – the Bankside Power Station. I had seen it on the boat cruise a few nights before. A gentleman made the observation that it looked like something that had dropped out of Moscow.

Once we passed Kremlin-on-Thames, the next landmark was a yellow office complex with a big, underground parking garage.

There was a security guard in front. Should we ask him for positive reinforcement that we were headed in the right direction? That would make half a dozen inquiries.

Nah! Full speed ahead. Another block, and we turned the corner.

There it was!

The Globe Theater Museum. A huge pit in the ground.

Still under construction.

All those people of whom we had asked directions – and no one had bothered to mention that it wasn’t built yet!

“That’s what blew my entire mind! All those people we asked! Nobody said it wasn’t finished,” said Sue Gibbon, a dietician from Squirrel Hill. “I thought it was really weird. Were they pulling the legs of the Americans? If somebody asked me about something that wasn’t there yet, I would tell them.”

I admit, we gaped. But we did what any self-respecting American tourists would do. We took pictures.

Fatigued from our day of sight-seeing and traipsing all over London, we considered calling a cab, or, while we were on that side of the river anyway, look for the Old Vic Theater. An occasional cab passed by, but to make our day complete, we hiked back across the Thames.

London cabbies are known for their intimate knowledge of the city, but the suburban ones are pretty resourceful, too. We had so many unanswered questions about Shakespeare’s Globe Theater Museum: was it going to be a replica of “this wooden O” housing Shakespearean stuff, or would it be a working theater? When is it supposed to open?

Supplying the answers to these and other questions was cabbie Albert Jones of Dudley Wharf. Bless his heart. He has certainly done more than his part to internationally promote the Globe Theater Museum. He even provided, on request, “press cuttings.”

So, here’s the scoop:

American actor-director Sam Wanamaker went in search of the Globe Theater site 44 years ago and found only a plaque on a brewery wall. Twenty-two years later, he founded the Globe Trust “and started raising money for a theater both physically and geographically as close to the original as possible,” according to a story in the London Times.

Seven million pounds has been spent on the Globe, using materials available in the late 16th century. Another 2 million pounds is needed. A performance of the “Merry Wives of Windsor” was staged at the construction site this year, and the trustees hope the theater will be completed April 23, 1994, the 430th anniversary of Shakespeare’s birth.

According to a press release prepared by the lnternational Shakespeare Globe Center, the replica theater will accommodate 1,300 people in three galleries and a yard around the stage. It will be an open-air structure lighted by natural means.

For the sake of authenticity there will be no stage lighting, no elaborate sets and no canned music. Several performances will take place weekly in mid-afternoon and some in the early evening.

The Globe Company hopes to present the entire Shakespeare canon within 10 years.

The London Tourist Board estimates more than 600,000 people will visit the Globe each year. Even if there’s no performance scheduled, seeing just the theater should be worthwhile.

And getting there may become easier. By the end of the 1990, Southwark is expected to have a new subway station close to the Blackfriars Bridge, and a recently completed pier will bring riverborne visitors to the theater, a Thames River walkway and the Tower Bridge. Maybe the theater will even be shown on the official maps issued to traffic wardens.