It was according to a well-calculated plan, therefore, that the elder Burbage erected his playhouse north of the city, in Finsbury Fields, where from ancient times the people had been accustomed to see and practise military exercises and other sports, and where the soldiers were still in the habit of practising archery and musketry.
And it was with equally sound calculation that he gave the theatre its particular form, which remained essentially the same in all the playhouses of the Shakespearean period.
Before the establishment of the permanent theatres there had long existed amphitheatres for the performance of fights between animals, the so-called "rings." These rings—the auditorium as well as the arena—were open all round, and the seats, like those of the ancient Greek theatre, were placed according to the natural formation of the ground.
Burbage retained the circular amphitheatrical form; being a joiner as well as an actor and manager, he was no doubt his own architect in his new theatrical enterprise.
But instead of the roofless, open-air auditorium, he constructed a covered circular wooden building with stories or galleries, which was made so as to contain a number of boxes for the distinguished and well-paying public, and which entirely enclosed the open, uncovered arena, which, as it recalled the inn-yards, was called the "yard," or afterward, perhaps on account of the high pitlike construction surrounding it, the "pit," whence the poorest and humblest spectators enjoyed the performances.
Finally, he built a covered "tire-house"—or "tiring-house," as it was called in those times—for the actors, a place in which also all the requisites and the so-called "properties" were kept. This tiring-house stood within the circle, and its roof towered up above the auditorium.
From the tiring-house the stage—a simple wooden platform resting on rams—was pushed forward, and it might be removed when the arena was to be used for fights between animals, etc., instead of dramatic performances.
By this reform of the building—a reform which became epoch-making to the whole Shakespearean period—James Burbage obtained a threefold advantage: more comfortable seats for the more distinguished portion of the audience, where they were sheltered from wind and weather; the use of the house both for plays and the baiting of animals; and the power to oblige the public to pay their admission at certain doors of his building, which spared him the unpleasant and unsafe collection of money from spectators, who might not always be very willing to pay.
But this result was not obtained without considerable expense.
Though we are not so fortunate as to possess a drawing of the outside or inside of The Theatre, about the shape of which, therefore, we must partly draw our conclusions from analogy with other playhouses, we are comparatively well informed as to its outward history till it was pulled down, in 1598-1599.