Minack Theatre, Porthcurno, Cornwall

The stage by the sea

Set right against the crashing waves of the English Channel, the Minack Theatre in Porthcurno, Cornwall, lies just a few miles from England's westernmost and southernmost points. As many as 80,000 people per year squeeze into this steep, stone-hewn space to see spectacular interpretations of Shakespeare's plays. Perhaps as compelling a story as any drama seen here was the life of Rowena Cade, who founded the Minack on her property in 1932. Rowena not only offered up part of her cliffside estate to the community for open-air theater productions, she eagerly built the stage and seating herself. Cutting stones and mixing concrete by hand, she and a few friends added to the theater a little at a time until her death in 1983, just shy of age 90.