John Orrell (December 31, 1934 – September 16, 2003) was a British author, theatre historian, and English professor at the University of Alberta.
The New York Times described him as the "historian whose intellectual detective work laid the groundwork for the 1997 re-creation of Shakespeare’s original Globe Theater.
In 1961 he joined the English department at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, where he lived for the rest of his life.
Orrell wrote and presented documentaries for CBC Television on a wide range of subjects, from Louis Riel to avalanche control to the Renaissance and Elizabethan culture.
His book The Quest for Shakespeare’s Globe, published by Cambridge University Press in 1983, brought him international recognition, and led to him serving as advisor to the architect for Sam Wanamaker’s reconstruction of Shakespeare's Globe theatre in Southwark, London.