Gibbon's Tennis Court

Gibbon's Tennis Court was a building off Vere Street and Clare Market, near Lincoln's Inn Fields in London, England.

The London School of Economics, which covers most of Clare Market nowadays, retains some squash and real tennis courts in its older buildings.

Both companies briefly performed in the theatrical spaces that had survived the interregnum and civil war (including the Cockpit and the Red Bull), but scrambled to quickly acquire facilities that were more to current tastes.

[3] Not long after the opening, on 20 November, avid theatre-goer Samuel Pepys attended his first performance at Vere Street: …Mr.

"[6] Killigrew's competition, Davenant, would take another seven months to open his new theatre in nearby Lisle's Tennis Court; working more from the model of court masque venues such as Inigo Jones’ Cockpit-in-Court, he equipped it with a stage complete with a proscenium arch and moveable scenery, painted onto a series of sliding panels.

The first occasion, based on its newly-written prologue, is thought to have been a performance of Othello on 8 December 1660; authorities differ as to the name of the actress who played Desdemona.