Editing Shoreditch (section)

===Shakespeare and the Elizabethan theatre===
[[File:St Leonards Memorial.JPG|thumb|right|upright|Memorial to Elizabethan actors buried in [[St Leonard's, Shoreditch|Shoreditch church]]]]
In 1574, the City authorities banned the building of playhouses in the City of London area. Consequently, theatres were built in the suburbs, beyond its jurisdiction.<ref>{{cite book |editor-first=Hugh |editor-last=Clout |title=The Times History of London |location=London |publisher=Times Books |year=1999 |isbn=9780723010302 |page=146 }}</ref>

The first of these came in 1576, when [[James Burbage]] built the first playhouse in England, known as "[[The Theatre]]", on the site of the Priory (commemorated today by a plaque on Curtain Road, and excavated in 2008, by [[MoLAS]]).<ref>[https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2008/aug/07/shakespeare.shoreditch ''Shakespeare's Shoreditch theatre unearthed''] Maev Kennedy, ''[[The Guardian]]'', Thursday, 7 August 2008</ref>

[[William Shakespeare]] lived nearby in a property overlooking [[St Helen's Church, Bishopsgate|St Helen's]] churchyard in the [[Bishopsgate|Bishopsgate Within]] area of the City. His early plays were first performed in Shoreditch, at The Theatre and at the nearby [[Curtain Theatre]], built the following year<ref name="madeinshoreditch.co.uk">{{cite web|url=http://madeinshoreditch.co.uk/2014/09/15/the-shoreditch-you-never-knew/|title=The Shoreditch You Never Knew – Made in Shoreditch Magazine|date=15 September 2014}}</ref> and {{convert|200|yd|m|0}} to the south (marked by a commemorative plaque in Hewett Street off Curtain Road). ''[[Romeo and Juliet]]'' was first performed here, gaining "Curtain plaudits", ''[[Henry V (play)|Henry V]]'' was performed within "this wooden O" and an early version of ''[[Hamlet]]'' was also first staged in Shoreditch.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://spitalfieldslife.com/2016/04/22/at-shakespeares-theatre-in-shoreditch/|title=At Shakespeare's Theatre In Shoreditch – Spitalfields Life|website=spitalfieldslife.com|access-date=13 June 2019}}</ref>

Shakespeare's Company moved the timbers of "The Theatre" to [[Southwark]] at the expiration of the lease in 1599, in order to construct the [[Globe Theatre|Globe]]. The Curtain continued performing plays in Shoreditch until at least 1627.<ref>Shapiro 2005.</ref>

The suburb of Shoreditch was attractive as a location for these early theatres because, like [[Southwark]], it was outside the jurisdiction of the somewhat puritanical City fathers. Even so, they drew the wrath of contemporary moralists, as did the local "base tenements and houses of unlawful and disorderly resort" and the "great number of dissolute, loose, and insolent people harboured in such and the like noisome and disorderly houses, as namely poor cottages, and habitations of beggars and people without trade, stables, inns, alehouses, taverns, garden-houses converted to dwellings, ordinaries, dicing houses, bowling alleys, and brothel houses".<ref>Middlesex Justices in 1596; cited in Schoenbaum 1987, p. 126.</ref>