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Charlotte Charke
Charlotte Charke (née Cibber, also Charlotte Secheverell, aka Charles Brown) was an English actress, playwright, novelist, and autobiographer. She began acting at the age of seventeen in breeches roles, and took to wearing male clothing off stage as well, performing and being publicly known as "Charles Brown" from 1741. Her later career and her writings were conducted under her own name, "Mrs. Charlotte Charke", and identified her as the daughter of Colley Cibber. After being unsuccessful in a series of jobs associated with men at the time, such as valet, sausage maker, farmer, and tavern owner, she succeeded in her career as a writer and continued her work as a novelist and memoirist until her death in 1760. Early life Charke was born on January 13, 1713, in London, England, the youngest of twelve children. Her father was actor, playwright, and poet laureate Colley Cibber, and her mother was musician and actress Katherine Shore. Most of her siblings passed away before the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
London, England, United Kingdom
London is the capital and largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Western Europe, with a population of 14.9 million. London stands on the River Thames in southeast England, at the head of a tidal estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a major settlement for nearly 2,000 years. Its ancient core and financial centre, the City of London, was founded by the Romans as Londinium and has retained its medieval boundaries. The City of Westminster, to the west of the City of London, has been the centuries-long host of the national government and parliament. London grew rapidly in the 19th century, becoming the world's largest city at the time. Since the 19th century the name "London" has referred to the metropolis around the City of London, historically split between the counties of Middlesex, Essex, Surrey, Kent and Hertfordshire, which since 1965 has largely comprised the adminis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Jones-Damon&Phillida
William is a masculine given name of Germanic origin. It became popular in England after the Norman conquest in 1066,All Things William"Meaning & Origin of the Name"/ref> and remained so throughout the Middle Ages and into the modern era. It is sometimes abbreviated "Wm." Shortened familiar versions in English include Will or Wil, Wills, Willy, Willie, Bill, Billie, and Billy. A common Irish form is Liam. Scottish diminutives include Wull, Willie or Wullie (as in Oor Wullie). Female forms include Willa, Willemina, Wilma and Wilhelmina. Etymology William is related to the German given name ''Wilhelm''. Both ultimately descend from Proto-Germanic ''*Wiljahelmaz'', with a direct cognate also in the Old Norse name ''Vilhjalmr'' and a West Germanic borrowing into Medieval Latin ''Willelmus''. The Proto-Germanic name is a compound of *''wiljô'' "will, wish, desire" and *''helmaz'' "helm, helmet".Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford Univer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lincoln's Inn Fields
Lincoln's Inn Fields is located in Holborn and is the List of city squares by size, largest public square in London. It was laid out in the 1630s under the initiative of the speculative builder and contractor William Newton, "the first in a long series of entrepreneurs who took a hand in developing London", as Sir Nikolaus Pevsner observes. The original plan for "laying out and planting" these fields, drawn by the hand of Inigo Jones, was said still to be seen in Lord Pembroke's collection at Wilton House in the 19th century, but its location is now unknown. The West End of London, West End grounds, which had remained private property, were acquired by London County Council in 1895 and opened to the public by its chairman, Sir John Hutton, the same year. The square is today managed by the London Borough of Camden and forms part of the southern boundary of that borough with the City of Westminster. Lincoln's Inn Fields takes its name from the adjacent Lincoln's Inn, of whic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Fleetwood (theatre Manager)
Charles Fleetwood (died 1747) was an English gentleman with an interest in theatre. He eventually became the manager of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, in partnership with Colley Cibber and, sometime later, Charles Macklin. Family Fleetwood's father was Thomas Fleetwood and his mother was Frances Gerard, whose brother was Charles, the sixth Baron Gerard. He was the couple's only son. He fell heir to a large estate from a relative of his mother's when he was twenty-one years of age but lost most of it gambling. Fleetwood married Susanna Williams (born 1714), a dancer and actress. The couple had two children, Charles and John, who both made stage appearances. Theatre Royal, Drury Lane The last of Fleetwood's inheritance was used to buy the patent for the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane from John Highmore in 1734. Highmore had owned half of the patent and Fleetwood paid £2,250 for it; at the same time Fleetwood bought Robert Wilks' share for £1,500 giving him five-sixths of the patent owne ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Relapse
''The Relapse, or, Virtue in Danger'' is a Restoration comedy from 1696 written by John Vanbrugh. The play is a sequel to Colley Cibber's '' Love's Last Shift, or, The Fool in Fashion''. In Cibber's ''Love's Last Shift'', a free-living Restoration rake is brought to repentance and reform by the ruses of his wife, while in ''The Relapse'', the rake succumbs again to temptation and has a new love affair. His virtuous wife is also subjected to a determined seduction attempt, and resists with difficulty. Vanbrugh planned ''The Relapse'' around particular actors at Drury Lane, writing their stage habits, public reputations, and personal relationships into the text. One such actor was Colley Cibber himself, who played the luxuriant fop Lord Foppington in both ''Love's Last Shift'' and ''The Relapse''. However, Vanbrugh's artistic plans were threatened by a cutthroat struggle between London's two theatre companies, each of which was "seducing" actors from the other. ''The Relap ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Beggar's Opera
''The Beggar's Opera'' is a ballad opera in three acts written in 1728 by John Gay with music arranged by Johann Christoph Pepusch. It is one of the watershed plays in Augustan drama and is the only example of the once thriving genre of satirical ballad opera to remain popular today. Ballad operas were satiric musical plays that used some of the conventions of opera, but without recitative. The lyrics of the airs in the piece are set to popular broadside ballads, opera arias, church hymns and folk tunes of the time. ''The Beggar's Opera'' premiered at the Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre on 29 January 1728 and ran for 62 consecutive performances, the second-longest run in theatre history up to that time (after 146 performances of Robert Cambert's '' Pomone'' in Paris in 1671). The work became Gay's greatest success and has been played ever since; it has been called "the most popular play of the eighteenth century". In 1920, ''The Beggar's Opera'' began a revival run of 1,463 p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Travesti (theatre)
Travesti is a theatrical character in an opera, play, or ballet performed by a performer of the opposite sex. For social reasons, female roles were played by boys or men in many early forms of theatre, and ''travesti'' roles continued to be used in several types of context even after actresses became accepted on the stage. The popular British theatrical form of the pantomime traditionally contains a role for a " principal boy" — a breeches role played by a young woman — and also one or more pantomime dames, female comic roles played by men. Similarly, in the formerly popular genre of Victorian burlesque, there were usually one or more breeches roles. Etymology The word means "disguised" in French. Depending on sources, the term may be given as travesty, ''travesti'', or ''en travesti''. The ''Oxford Essential Dictionary of Foreign Terms in English'' explains the origin of the latter term as "pseudo- French", although French sources from the mid-19th century have used th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Othello
''The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice'', often shortened to ''Othello'' (), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare around 1603. Set in Venice and Cyprus, the play depicts the Moorish military commander Othello as he is manipulated by his ensign, Iago, into suspecting his wife Desdemona of infidelity. ''Othello'' is widely considered one of Shakespeare's greatest works and is usually classified among his major tragedies alongside ''Macbeth'', ''King Lear'', and ''Hamlet''. Unpublished in the author's life, the play survives in one quarto edition from 1622 and in the First Folio. ''Othello'' has been one of Shakespeare's most popular plays, both among playgoers and literary critics, since its first performance, spawning numerous stage, screen, and operatic adaptations. Among actors, the roles of Othello, Iago, Desdemona, and Emilia (Iago's wife) are regarded as highly demanding and desirable. Critical attention has focused on the nature of the play's tragedy, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Roderigo
Roderigo is a fictional character in Shakespeare's 1604 play '' Othello''. Roderigo, a wealthy Venetian, is manipulated into funding the antagonist Iago's plot against Othello in the hopeless belief that Iago will aid him in courting Othello's wife Desdemona. In the later acts, Iago recruits Roderigo to assassinate Othello's former lieutenant Michael Cassio, though he is killed by Iago when he fails in his attempt to do so. Despite Shakespeare heavily basing ''Othello'' on Cinthio's Italian language tale ''Un Capitano Moro'', Roderigo has no counterpart in the original text, unlike other characters, suggesting that Shakespeare created the character himself. Sources While Shakespeare based ''Othello'' on a number of sources, the play was primarily based on the 1565 tale ''The Story of a Moorish Captain'' in Italian by Cinthio.Shakespeare, William. ''Four Tragedies: Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth''. Bantam Books, 1988. Role in ''Othello'' Roderigo is introduced in the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Lillo
George Lillo (3 February 1691 – 4 September 1739) was an English playwright and tragedian. He was also a jeweller in London. He produced his first stage work, ''Silvia, or The Country Burial'', in 1730, and a year later his most famous play, '' The London Merchant''. He wrote at least six more plays before his death in 1739, including '' The Christian Hero'' (1735), '' Fatal Curiosity'' (1737) and ''Marina'' (1738). Life George Lillo was born in Moorfields, or Moorgate, in the City of London.Steffensen, James L."Lillo, George (1691/1693–1739)" ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 2004; online edition, May 2008, retrieved 9 December 2011 ("You do not currently have access to this article"Archived site He became a partner in his father's goldsmith's and jewellery business. Early stage works Lillo wrote at least eight plays between 1730 and his death in 1739. His first work in the theatre was the ballad opera '' Sylvia, or The Country Burial' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The London Merchant
''The London Merchant (Or The History Of George Barnwell)'' is playwright George Lillo's most famous work. A tragedy that follows the downfall of a young apprentice due to his association with a prostitute, it is remarkable for its use of middle and working class characters. First performed at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, Drury Lane Theatre on 21 June 1731, ''The London Merchant'' became one of the most popular plays of the century. Sources George Lillo was born in London on 4 February 1693. By 1730, he began writing plays such as ''The London Merchant'', ''Fatal Curiosity'', ''Silvia'', and ''The Country Burial''. Lillo based ''The London Merchant'' on a seventeenth-century ballad about a murder in Shropshire. The ballad follows the adventures of George Barnwell, who engages in an affair with the prostitute Sarah Millwood. After stealing money from his employer to fund his relationship, Barnwell robs and murders his uncle. Both Barnwell and Millwood are arrested and exe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Vanbrugh
Sir John Vanbrugh (; 24 January 1664 (baptised) – 26 March 1726) was an English architect, dramatist and herald, perhaps best known as the designer of Blenheim Palace and Castle Howard. He wrote two argumentative and outspoken Restoration comedies, '' The Relapse'' (1696) and '' The Provoked Wife'' (1697), which have become enduring stage favourites but originally occasioned much controversy. He was knighted in 1714.Robert Chambers, Book of Days Vanbrugh was in many senses a radical throughout his life. As a young man and a committed Whig, he was part of the scheme to overthrow James II and put William III on the throne. He was imprisoned by the French as a political prisoner. In his career as a playwright, he offended many sections of Restoration and 18th century society, not only by the sexual explicitness of his plays, but also by their messages in defence of women's rights in marriage. He was attacked on both counts, and was one of the prime targets of Jerem ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
