Qualla: Shakespeare North https://qualla.com/shakespeare-north en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:15 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/q/p/shakespeare-north-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Shakespeare North https://qualla.com/shakespeare-north Shakespeare North: Introduction https://qualla.com/shakespeare-north/ Photo credit Rodhullandemu, CC BY-SA 4.0. Somewhere in the small Merseyside town of Prescot, between roughly 1590 and 1610, stood the only purpose-built Elizabethan theatre outside London. The shareholders of the Globe knew it. The men who acted Shakespeare's plays in the wooden O on the Thames also performed at the Prescot Playhouse, taking their craft into a Lancashire mining town owned by the Earl of Derby. Then the playhouse vanished. No architectural plans of it survived, no detailed accounts, no images, just the bare fact of its existence and a handful of documentary fragments. The Shakespeare North Playhouse, which opened in Prescot on 15 July 2022, sits on the site of the old Mill Street car park, a stone's throw from the parish church. It does not pretend to recreate what was lost. Instead it recreates something else, something equally remarkable and equally extinct, and in doing so it brings four centuries of theatrical history under a single roof.

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Image: Rodhullandemu | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/q/p/shakespeare-north-wp/gcqp-shakespeare-north-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Shakespeare North: The Lost Playhouse https://qualla.com/shakespeare-north/ Photo credit Rodhullandemu, CC BY-SA 4.0. Prescot in the late sixteenth century was a market town with strong ties to the household of the Stanleys, Earls of Derby, whose seat at Knowsley Hall lay a few miles to the west. The Stanleys maintained a company of players, Lord Strange's Men, who became among the most importan...

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]]> Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/q/p/shakespeare-north-wp/gcqp-shakespeare-north-the-lost-playhouse.mp3 0:06 2 full Shakespeare North: Inigo Jones in Knowsley https://qualla.com/shakespeare-north/ Photo credit Rodhullandemu, CC BY-SA 4.0. Since no plans of the original Prescot playhouse survive, the architects Helm Architecture and Austin-Smith:Lord turned to a different model. The auditorium within the new Shakespeare North Playhouse is modelled on the Cockpit-in-Court theatre at Whitehall Palace, designed by Ini...

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]]> Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/q/p/shakespeare-north-wp/gcqp-shakespeare-north-inigo-jones-in-knowsley.mp3 0:06 3 full Shakespeare North: Funding a Long Wait https://qualla.com/shakespeare-north/ Photo credit Rodhullandemu, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Shakespeare North Trust was founded by the academics Richard Wilson and David Thacker, with Edward Stanley, 19th Earl of Derby, serving as patron. The Stanley connection runs deep: the Earl provided land for the complex, continuing nearly four centuries of family involvement ...

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]]> Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/q/p/shakespeare-north-wp/gcqp-shakespeare-north-funding-a-long-wait.mp3 0:06 4 full Shakespeare North: A Town That Got Its Theatre Back https://qualla.com/shakespeare-north/ Photo credit Rodhullandemu, CC BY-SA 4.0. The four-storey complex on Mill Street holds a 470-seat main auditorium, a modern studio space, the outdoor performance garden funded by the Dodd foundation, and an exhibition and visitor centre. Beyond performance, the building serves as an educational centre offering opportunit...

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]]> Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/q/p/shakespeare-north-wp/gcqp-shakespeare-north-a-town-that-got-its-theatre-back.mp3 0:06 5 full