Francis Langley - Swan Theatre

Swan Theatre

Langley's central achievement in Elizabethan drama was the building of the Swan Theatre in Southwark, on the south shore of the River Thames across from the City of London, in 1595–96. The Swan was the fourth large public playhouse in London, after Burbage's The Theatre (1576), Lanman's Curtain (1577) and Henslowe's Rose (1587) — though the Swan was in its time the most well-appointed and visually striking of the four. Langley had purchased the Manor of Paris Garden as early as May 1589, for the sum of £850. (Paris Garden was a "liberty," at the extreme western end of the Bankside district of Southwark. The Manor in question had been part of the monastery of Bermondsey, which, like all such establishments in England, had passed into private hands after Henry VIII's Dissolution of the Monasteries. In November of 1594, the Lord Mayor of London complained to Lord Burghley about Langley's plans to build another theatre on the Bankside. The Rose and the Beargarden, the bear-baiting ring, were already located there.

The Lord Mayor's protest had no discernible effect; the Swan was certainly ready by February 1597, when Langley signed a contract with Pembroke's Men to play at his new theatre. Their contract mentions that the theatre had already been in use for plays, which points to activity in the summer of 1596. The playing company involved is not named; but given Shakespeare's odd connection with Langley (see below), it might have been the Lord Chamberlain's Men.