Archeologists and workers work on an excavation site of London's first theater, Thursday. – AP LONDON – In the middle of London, a plot of earth is dug across with trenches and studded with old bricks. If the world of theater ever has hallowed ground, this is it. It's the site of London's first theater, where William Shakespeare's plays were performed and where the Bard himself once trod the boards. Archeologists who have been digging here since 2008 have uncovered a section of outer wall and floor surface from the building, completed in 1576 and known simply as The Theatre - whose timbers were later used to build The Globe theater. Now a London drama troupe plans to erect a new building on the site, bringing live performances back to the spot where Elizabethan drama flourished more than 400 years ago. Shakespeare's influence on English culture is incalculable, but relatively few physical links to him remain. Nowhere else but at The Theater can actors stand exactly where their Elizabethan predecessors once stood. The remains of The Theatre were discovered underneath a Victorian warehouse, which unlike many similar buildings had no basement. That meant the layers below had been preserved. The Tower Theatre Company, an 80-year-old amateur troupe that has been searching for a permanent home, bought the site a few years ago and asked Museum of London archaeologists to have a look. The bricks were the remains of a curved wall, indicating a polygonal building, a common style for Elizabethan theaters. They have also dug up pottery shards, including a piece of 16th-century jug decorated with the face of an Elizabethan gentleman, distinctive in his ruff and pointy beard. The archeologists say they should finish their excavations next month, after which Tower Theatre hopes to begin erecting a new theater on the site. The remains of the original theater will be displayed under glass as part of the new building, but the structure will be thoroughly modern.
