The Pop-up Globe took as its starting point ground-breaking research into the second Globe playhouse, and its size and configuration reflect the geometry theorised in that research. Its design maps onto the archaeology of the first and second Globes much more accurately than does Shakespeare’s Globe in London, and its reproduction of the geometry of the original Globes results in an actor–audience relationship that is markedly more intense and intimate. It has delivered seven critically acclaimed and successful seasons (Auckland 2016, 2017, 2017/18, 2018/19; Melbourne 2017/18; Sydney 2018; Perth 2019) that have created a whole new audience for Shakespeare in repertory, often with transformative educational effects.

But it is a scaffolding building, not timber framed as is the London Globe; the features of its stage and scenae frons and the staging practices employed in its productions have developed from one iteration to the next, referencing historical practices and staging theories but overtly prioritising modern production imperatives. So, what is it that constitutes its historical authenticity?

The authors of this chapter are the principal academic and theatre maker involved in this collaboration, and they reflect on the relationships between a pure historical research project into the architecture of the second Globe playhouse and its application in the Pop-up Globe, on the effects of that architecture on its audience, and on the issues and creative tensions that flow from two radically different but inter-dependent projects.

Othello has long been a play that has provoked audience interjections. This chapter gives an account of a production staged by The Pantaloons theatre company in 2019 that was put together in order to explore the effects of direct audience address, playfulness and spontaneity. Player/playgoer relationships can be anticipated in the text, but they cannot be pre-programmed: they are determined by the moment-by-moment unfolding of the drama as it is played between actors and audience under specific, never-to-be-repeated conditions. Practice-as-research of this kind allows for a close-up examination of particular instances of actor/audience contact, and emphasises the creative role of the actor (and indeed the audience) in bringing ‘the play’ into its always-transient existence. Making detailed reference to the production’s rehearsal process, its development over the tour, the perspectives of its cast, and the responses of its audiences, this chapter argues that seeking opportunities for direct audience contact in Othello allows for a range of affective and ethical relationships between player and audience, some of which can have a substantial impact on the ways in which the play makes its meanings. It concludes with some thoughts about the possibilities inherent in conceptualising performance as play rather than as ‘acting’.