Life of William Shakespeare Around 1568, a group of actors visited Stratford and put on a play before the entire town, with permission from John Shakespeare, the mayor of the town. Thepeople loved the play, especially the small children. All of them looked up tothe actors, as they returned each year to perform different plays. They haddreams of one day becoming actors, but only one of these children fulfilled thisdream. This child was the mayor's son, William Shakespeare.At this time, actors in England usually spent their careers traveling to newtowns, performing plays at city buildings or local inns. However, with the helpof James Burbage, this all changed. James Burbage designed and built the firsttheatre in England. The actors could then settle down in one place and performin a place built for plays. The theatre was a huge success, and many more beganpopping up over England, but this theatre built by James Burbage was foreverknown as The Theatre.The layout of the stage consisted of five levels. The lowest level was for trapdoors built into the stage. The next level was the main stage, where the actorsdid most of their performing. Above this was the balcony level, which could beused to represent anything from a city wall to a mountain. The next levelcontained pulleys which could raise or lower anything from above. The top levelwas used for creating sounds of rain or thunder, or dropping important objectsfrom the sky.William Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway at age 18. In two years, they hadthree children, a daughter named Susanna, and twins, Hamnet and Judith. Hedidn't stay in Stratford long after this though. He left his family to pursue acareer as an actor in London.Shakespeare wrote his first play in 1592. It was a historical play called HenryVI, which was one of the biggest successes of the year. Some scholarscriticized him because he did not have a university education like mostplaywrites, but probably the onl...
