ORRELL, John (Overton) 1934-2003

OBITUARY NOTICE—

See index for CA sketch: Born December 31, 1934, in Maidstone, England; died of melanoma September 16, 2003, in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Educator and author. Orrell is often remembered as a Shakespearean scholar and expert on the Globe Theater whose work helped to accurately recreate the famous theater when it was rebuilt in 1997. After serving in the Royal Air Force as a pilot from 1953 to 1955, he attended University College, Oxford, where he earned his B.A. in 1948 and an M.A. in 1964. He then continued his studies at the University of Toronto, where he taught English and received a second master's degree in 1959 and a Ph.D. in 1964. In 1961 he joined the faculty at the University of Alberta. There, he taught Shakespeare classes and conducted research on old theaters. He became an advisor for the World Shakespeare Globe Center in 1979, using a combination of mathematics, archaeology, and seventeenth-century documents to advise architects on the specifications of the original Globe, which had first been completed in 1599. Although some critics later claimed that Orrell got some of his measurements wrong and that the reconstructed Globe was too large, others feel that he came as close as possible, given the lack of surviving records. Today, the new Globe is a major tourist attraction in London. In addition to his work on the Globe, Orrell wrote or cowrote several books about historical theaters, including Fallen Empires: Lost Theatres of Edmonton, 1881-1914 (1981), The Quest for Shakespeare's Globe (1983), The Theatres of Inigo Jones and John Webb (1985), Rebuilding Shakespeare's Globe (1989), and The Human Stage: English Theatre Design, 1567-1640 (1989).

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Los Angeles Times, October 1, 2003, p. B10.

New York Times, September 28, 2003, p. A27.

Times (London, England), September 26, 2003.