What was the legal status of Shakespeare's theater?

Answer 1

Your question is not clear. If you mean by "Shakespeare's theatre" the theatrical profession in Shakespeare's day, it was legal provided that the theatrical company was under the patronage of a member of the nobility or royalty. Without such a patron, a company of actors were "masterless men" and might be arrested as vagabonds and vagrants.

If you mean by "Shakespeare's theatre" a theatre Shakespeare played in, there were a lot of them, with different legal arrangements. The Theatre was owned by James Burbage, but the land under it wasn't. When the landlord decided he didn't like plays he locked people out of the theatre. The Rose was owned by Philip Henslowe, and he also owned the land it was on. Henslowe appears to have also owned Newington Butts Theatre. Burbage may have owned The Curtain playhouse. Shakespeare acted in all these playhouses.

When James Burbage died his sons Richard and Cuthbert inherited the Theatre but couldn't do anything with it because of the lockout. When the landlord was away, they hired a carpenter, Peter Street, to take down The Theatre and move the timbers to a new location south of the River Thames. In order to finance the building of a new theatre they took on four investors, each of whom was to own a one-eighth share in the new playhouse, to be called the Globe, which was opened in 1599. The Globe was therefore run by a partnership, in which there were major partners (the Burbages) and minor partners (one of whom was Shakespeare). The landlord of the property where the Theatre had been built was unsurprisingly furious and sued the Burbages, but the court held that the theatre building belonged to the Burbages and not to their landlord, and that they were within their rights to take it away. Legally speaking, the court held that the theatre was a chattel, not a fixture.