From 1597 to 1599, it became the premier venue of Shakespeare's Company, the Lord Chamberlain's Men, who had been forced to leave their former playing space at The Theatre after the latter closed in 1596.

J. Leeds Barroll focuses in Shakespeare studies: An annual gathering of Research, Criticism and Reviews on the fact that Henry Lanman had offered the Curtain as an easer to James Burbage, proprietor of the Theatre.

As far as is known, Lanman ran the Curtain as a private concern for the first phase of its existence; he died in 1606[8] and it is assumed by Edmund Chambers that it had been re-arranged into a shareholder's enterprise before his death at some point.

[4]: 63 [9] The fact that both of these shareholders belonged to Shakespeare's company may indicate that the re-organization of the Curtain occurred when the Lord Chamberlain's Men were acting there; otherwise, it would have been very unwise of Burbage to pool profits if he was doing better in the first place.

[10]: 144 The London theatres, including the Curtain, were closed for much of the period from September 1592 to April 1594 due to outbreaks of bubonic plague.

[11] In 1597, people wrote to the local magistrates' court demanding that no plays take place at the Curtain or the Theatre that year.

[16][17] In 2013 plans were submitted to develop the site with a 40-storey tower of 400 apartments, plus a Shakespeare museum, 250-seat outdoor auditorium and park, with the archaeological remains visible in a glass enclosure.

[18] In May 2016, excavators announced that the theatre was probably an adaptation of an existing structure, in the form of a rectangle measuring 22×25 metres, rather than being round or polygonal.

[19] The theatre had timber galleries with mid and upper areas for wealthier audience members, and a courtyard made from compacted gravel for those with less to spend.

[21] In November 2016, a tunnel structure – accessed by doors on either end of the stage – was unearthed, which would have allowed actors to exit from one side and come on again from the other without being seen by the audience.