This, the second English purpose-built playhouse was erected very close to the first, The Theatre, and run by the same man, Burbage. Not named for the modern drape on a proscenium arch, but for its proximity to Curtain Close, a place named itself after the nearby London Wall. Long plain sections of wall are still known to those in the know as "curtain walls".
Here, in this "wooden O", Shakespeare performed and Henry V was staged. Ceased operating somewhere between 1622 and the Civil War, 1642. In 2008, the Museum of London unearthed the footings of the Theatre and a new theatre is set to be built on the site.
