History -- In Search of History: England's Theatres of Blood

In 1600, London citizens poor and rich attend the theater to enjoy grand spectacles of drama, music and dance. These huge playhouses like Shakespeare's Globe Theatre offer the highest form of entertainment to the masses of Elizabethan England. Nowhere inthe world is there a better stage. The impresarios are rich; the actors are worshipped and the playwrights immortalized. Yet in 1642, the stroke of a pen wipes British theater off the face of the earth. The stages are demolished and many plays are lost. What was it like to experience the grand theater of old England, and why was it outlawed?