William Shakespeare Spent 5 Years Working For A Theatre Group And Saved Enough To Make An Important Investment Which One Was It?

Shakespeare invested in the Globe Theatre in 1599, five years after he invested in the Acting Company The Lord Chamberlain's Men. The suggestion that he squirrelled away his money for those five years so he could buy a share in the theatre building is ridiculous, because, first, nobody knew five years earlier that the Burbages would need investors in the Globe since they had two perfectly good theatres already, and second, Shakespeare had a lot more money than he put into the Globe. In fact, two years before investing in the Globe, he spent a whack of money buying the second-largest house in Stratford-upon-Avon for his wife to live in.

In 1599, the "Globe" rose, phoenix like, from the rubble of the hastily pulled down "Theatre", built in1576 by James Burbage, father of Richard. This enabled some of the actor's of the Lord Chamberlain's Men to buy a 'share' in the new company, and partake of any profit. It also meant, that they were responsible for providing the necessary finance in promoting plays and such like, and of maintaining the theatre and everything else involved. A tall order. However, plays were the new 'darling' of Londoners, and the Lord Chamberlain's Men, and the Admiral's Men, in their respective theatres, the "Globe" and the "Rose", Made some serious money in the years that followed. All of Shakespeare's fellow 'sharers', were able to invest, substantially, in property in and around London, and Shakespeare himself, to go on, and invest heavily, in tithes and rental litigation, until his death. Indeed, most of the information concerning Shakespeare now, is about his litiginous dealings in Law, and not his writing for the stage.