SHAKESPEARE CENTRE PLANNED FOR LONDON

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 43, 6 March 1937, Page 11

SHAKESPEARE CENTRE PLANNED FOR LONDON

Leading Shakespearians in England and the United States are combining to promote a scheme to establish a Shakespeare centre in London. The Globe-Mermaid A'ssociation has been formed with the three-fold object (1) of rebuilding Shekespeare 's old Globe Theatre, destroyed by fire in June, 1613; (2) of rebuilding with it the old Mermaid Tavern, originally located in Bread street, Cheapside, and made famous by the poet and his friends, and (3) of founding an Elizabethan library and nxuseum for the use of students and visitors' from all over the world. It is proposed. to put.up these buildings on a prominent site on the south (Surrey) embankmeht of the Thames, the whole to be surrounded with trees, shrubs and flowers from Warwickshire, where the poet was born. The theatre and the tavern will embody all that is most characteristic of their Tudor originals. The aim will be not so much to copy slavishly the ■ letter as to recapture the spirit and atmosphere of the tavern, and theatre as Shakespeare knew them. Architecturally the most imposing of. the gfoup of buildings comprising the memorial will be the library and museum. Here the student will be given every faeility to" improve " his knowledge of the Elizabethan period in its literature and its life. Provision will be made for a spacious music ehamber, eqixipped with an orehestra covering the whole range of contemporary instruments. In addition there will be lecture and congress halls, and rooms for clubs and special gatherings. It is estimated that the complete scheme will cost about £250,000. The general council is anxious that a great efforfe should be made to secure the site and begin building operations this year. • ■ * The president of the aSsociation in England is Lord Derby, : and in the U.S.A. Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler, president of Ccilumbia University,-