Archaeologists believe they have found the brick foundations of the Theatre — the performance space in London (in an area known as Shoreditch) where William Shakespeare first performed as an actor and where his first plays were staged. Built in 1576, it was home to the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, the company that the young Shakespeare first joined. Because of a dispute with the landowner, Giles Allen, the Theatre was dismantled by company master James Burbage, who’d built the wooden structure, and with the help of carpenter Peter Street and the rest of the Chamberlain’s Men, it was ferried at night across the Thames in pieces and rebuilt “in a new form” as the Globe, at the time, the largest amphitheater in London.

The excavated site will eventually be the home of the Tower Theater Company, which regularly performs Shakespeare’s plays.