Shakespeare’s Globe is a reconstruction of the Globe Theatre, an Elizabethan playhouse, on the south bank of the River Thames that was originally built in 1599, destroyed by fire in 1613, rebuilt in 1614, and then demolished in 1644. The modern reconstruction is an academic approximation based on available evidence of the 1599 and 1614 buildings. It was founded by the actor and director Sam Wanamaker and built about 750 feet from the site of the original theatre and opened to the public in 1997.