Meet the greatest playwright who ever lived — discover how William Shakespeare created plays that are still loved and performed over 400 years later!
The Elizabethans enjoyed many pastimes, and one of their favourites was going to the theatre. At a time when there were no televisions, cinemas or computers, people went to watch plays performed on stage.
Several playwrights from this time became famous and are still remembered today, including Christopher Marlowe and Ben Jonson. However, the most famous of all was William Shakespeare.
Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1564. By the early 1590s, he was working in London as both an actor and a playwright. Not much is known about his personal life, but he wrote more than three dozen plays, many of which are among the most famous works in English literature.
Some of his best-known plays include the tragedies Macbeth, Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet.
These plays were performed on the London stage, sometimes in front of the queen and other important people during the later years of Elizabeth I's reign and during the rule of her successor, King James I.
Shakespeare had his own group of actors called the Lord Chamberlain's Men. Between 1599 and 1613, they performed many of his plays at their own theatre in London called the Globe Theatre.
For many years, some people have questioned whether Shakespeare really wrote all the plays that are credited to him. However, a collection of his works called the First Folio was published in 1623, after his death in 1616, and it shows that Shakespeare was the writer of these plays.
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