The Swan (theatre)

The Swan was a theatre in Southwark, London, England, built in 1595 on top of a previously standing structure,[1] during the first half of William Shakespeare's career.

The Swan Theatre was located in the manor of Paris Gardens, on the west end of the Bankside district of Southwark, across the Thames River from the City of London.

It was at the northeast corner of the Paris Garden estate nearest to London Bridge that Francis Langley had purchased in May 1589 at a distance of four hundred and twenty-six feet from the river's edge.

Johannes De Witt, a Dutchman who visited London around 1596, left a description of the Swan in a manuscript titled Observationes Londiniensis, now lost.

[4] It was built of flint concrete, and its wooden supporting columns were so cleverly painted that "they would deceive the most acute observer into thinking that they were marble", giving the Swan a "Roman" appearance.

[5] In 1597, the Swan housed the acting company Pembroke's Men, with Actors Richard Jones, Thomas Downtown, and William Bird.

[7] In 1597 Pembroke's Men staged the infamous play The Isle of Dogs, by Thomas Nashe and Ben Jonson, the content of which gave offence, most likely for its "satirical"[1] nature on the attack of some people high in authority.

Along with The Isle of Dogs, the most famous play to premiere there was Thomas Middleton's A Chaste Maid in Cheapside, performed by the newly merged Lady Elizabeth's Men in 1613.

In Nicholas Goodman's 1632 pamphlet Holland's Leaguer, the theatre is described as "now fallen into decay, and, like a dying swan, hangs her head and sings her own dirge.