We know that, besides his sonnets, poems and popular plays, he also appeared as an actor in some of his own work. He played Adam in As You Like It, and the Ghost in Hamlet

In 1603, the company became even more high-profile. On the death of Queen Elizabeth and the ascension of King James, the Lord Chamberlain's Men became the King's Men. Fifteen years after the building of the Globe, in the year 1613, the theatre could not be saved from burning to the ground after catching fire during a production of Shakespeare's Henry VIII. A new Globe was built on the site the following year and this stood until the Civil War (1644).

The King's Men, however, had already taken possession of an additional, smaller indoor theatre, the Blackfriars, in 1608. Shakespeare bought a house quite close to Blackfriars, but from then on lived most of his remaining life in Stratford.