In the heart of the Permian Basin, 5,000 miles from where William Shakespeare originally penned his plays, an Odessa replica of his premier theater brings the bard’s classics to West Texas.
The Globe of the Great Southwest, also known as the Globe Theatre at Odessa College, is a recreation of the original 1599 Globe Theatre in London. Built by Shakespeare’s acting company, the 30-foot-tall building had a thatched roof over three levels of seating areas for wealthy spectators, but lower social classes were restricted to an uncovered standing yard near the stage. Before the original structure burned down in 1613, it hosted some of Shakespeare’s best-known works and was the most famous playhouse of the Elizabethan era.
Across the pond from its predecessor, the Odessa Globe is assumed to be the most authentic permanent replica of the original Globe. During construction, the same type of wood used in the original Globe was flown in from England. Inside, the lanterns mimic the original’s design, and the entire theater is built to the proportions of the 1599 theater. While the Texas version only seats 400 guests compared to the London Globe’s capacity for thousands, Odessa’s theater brings a slice of Shakespeare to the south.
Today, the venue still carries on the tradition of live theater with shows staged by Odessa College’s theater department and the annual Odessa Shakespeare Festival. This year, the Shakespeare Festival will bring Twelfth Night and Shakespeare’s Greatest Hits, a series of selections from his plays, to the stage. Odessa College’s programming will pick back up during the fall semester, and information on their upcoming shows can be found here.
“It’s a point of pride,” says Aaron Ganz, Odessa Arts executive director and former artistic director of the Odessa Globe Theatre. “It’s our beautiful space that attaches us to the larger points in history, to things like Shakespeare and to places like England and London.”
West Texas’ Shakespearean saga started in 1948 when a student of Odessa High School teacher Marjorie Morris created a model of the Globe Theatre for a class project. A passing comment sparked the idea for the creation of a replica theater, and Morris dove headfirst into making it a reality. While studying the Elizabethan era for her master’s degree at North Texas State College, now the University of North Texas, Morris made the Globe Theatre a focal point of her thesis.
In 1951, she returned to West Texas as a professor at Odessa College—which donated land for the theater project. With Morris spearheading fundraising efforts, the Globe Theatre opened in 1968. A replica of Anne Hathaway’s cottage was even added to the grounds two decades later.
“[Morris] was the type of person who would not take no for an answer because she had this belief that Odessa deserved this,” Ganz says. “Just like the rest of Odessa, it wasn’t just gifted to anybody over here. It was something that came from hard work.”
Thanks to Morris’ commitment to accuracy, the Odessa Globe’s likeness was enough to inspire a trip across the Atlantic for a group of London architects. According to Ganz, the architects responsible for the 1997 reconstruction of the London Globe visited the Odessa replica to study its measurements.
While the two theaters have similarities, they aren’t a perfect match. The roof, air conditioning, and modern amenities of electricity and cushioned seating in the Odessa Globe weren’t found in the 16th-century theater. Even with its differences, Ganz says the venue still serves its purpose: transporting Texans centuries into the past.
“They put their hands on the wood, they sit in the seats and look at the stage, and you know they’re imagining shows and people from the modern era,” Ganz says. “But they’re also imagining what it would have been like back in the day seeing those actors that created the stories that have lasted forever.”
