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James William Dodd
James William Dodd (1740?–1796) was an English actor, one of David Garrick's picked company. Early life Born in London about 1740, he is said to have been the son of a hairdresser. He was educated at the grammar school in Holborn. A success in a school performance of the ''Andria'' of Terence decided him to become an actor. Aged 16, Dodd is said to have appeared at Sheffield as Roderigo in ''Othello''. He was met by Tate Wilkinson in Norwich in 1763. He then played in comedy and tragedy, and was popular, according to Wilkinson. An engagement in Bath, Somerset followed, and proved a stepping-stone to London. At Drury Lane John Hoadly saw Dodd in '' The Jealous Wife'' and recommended him to David Garrick, who decided with James Lacy to engage him for Drury Lane Theatre. Dodd's first appearance at Drury Lane took place 3 October 1765 as Faddle in Edward Moore's comedy, ''The Foundling''. For 31 years, Dodd remained there. During this long period he played mainly beaux and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David Garrick
David Garrick (19 February 1716 – 20 January 1779) was an English actor, playwright, Actor-manager, theatre manager and producer who influenced nearly all aspects of European theatrical practice throughout the 18th century, and was a pupil and friend of Samuel Johnson. He appeared in several amateur theatricals, and with his appearance in the title role of Shakespeare's ''Richard III (play), Richard III'', audiences and managers began to take notice. Impressed by his portrayals of Richard III and several other roles, Charles Fleetwood (theatre manager), Charles Fleetwood engaged Garrick for a season at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in the West End theatre, West End. He remained with the Drury Lane company for the next five years and purchased a share of the theatre with James Lacy (actor), James Lacy. This purchase inaugurated 29 years of Garrick's management of the Drury Lane, during which time it rose to prominence as one of the leading theatres in Europe. At his death, thr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Plain Dealer
''The Plain Dealer'' is the major newspaper of Cleveland, Ohio; it is a major national newspaper. In the fall of 2019, it ranked 23rd in U.S. newspaper circulation, a significant drop since March 2013, when its circulation ranked 17th daily and 15th on Sunday. , ''The Plain Dealer'' had 94,838 daily readers and 171,404 readers on Sunday. ''The Plain Dealer''s media market, the Cleveland-Akron Designated Market Area, has a population of 3.8 million people making it the 19th-largest market in the United States. In August 2013, ''The Plain Dealer'' reduced home delivery to four days a week, including Sunday. A daily version of ''The Plain Dealer'' is available electronically as well as in print at stores, newspaper vending machine, newsracks and newsstands. History Founding The newspaper was established in January 1842 when two brothers, Joseph William Gray and Admiral Nelson Gray, took over ''The Cleveland Advertiser'' and changed its name to ''The Plain Dealer''. ''The Cleve ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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] |
John Philip Kemble
John Philip Kemble (1 February 1757 – 26 February 1823) was a British actor. He was born into a theatrical family as the eldest son of Roger Kemble, actor-manager of a touring troupe. His elder sister Sarah Siddons achieved fame with him on the stage of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. His other siblings, Charles Kemble, Stephen Kemble, Ann Hatton, and Elizabeth Whitlock, also enjoyed success on the stage. Early life The second child of Roger Kemble – the manager of the travelling theatre company the Warwickshire Company of Comedians – he was born at Prescot, Lancashire. John Kemble article at His mother being a |
A Trip To Scarborough
''A Trip to Scarborough'' is an 18th-century play by Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751–1816), first performed on 24 February 1777. Sheridan based his work on John Vanbrugh's ''The Relapse'' (1696), removing much of the bawdy content. The play was reworked as one of three plot strands in a 1982 revival by Alan Ayckbourn, with the action taking place in the Royal Hotel, Scarborough, North Yorkshire, Scarborough. The first performance was on 8 December that year. It is a technically demanding piece as the actors are required to take on several roles, with quick changes between scenes as the play switches from the 18th century to World War II to the present day. Ayckbourn updated the production when it returned to the Stephen Joseph Theatre in the town during 2007–2008. Plot The hero of the play, Tom Fashion, arrives penniless in Scarborough, North Yorkshire, Scarborough, attended by but one faithful servant, Lory, who privately informs the audience that he will never desert hi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Critic (play)
''The Critic: or, a Tragedy Rehearsed'' is a satire by Richard Brinsley Sheridan. It was first staged at Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, Drury Lane Theatre in 1779. It is a Victorian burlesque, burlesque on stage acting and play production conventions, and Sheridan considered the first act to be his finest piece of writing. One of its major roles, Sir Fretful Plagiary, is a comment on the vanity of authors, and in particular a caricature of the dramatist Richard Cumberland (dramatist), Richard Cumberland who was a contemporary of Sheridan. Based on George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham, George Villiers' ''The Rehearsal (play), The Rehearsal'', it concerns misadventures that arise when an author, Mr Puff, invites Sir Fretful Plagiary and the theatre critics Dangle and Sneer to a rehearsal of his play ''The Spanish Armada'', Sheridan's parody of the then-fashionable tragic drama. In 1911, Herbert Beerbohm Tree mounted a star-studded production of ''The Critic'' at Her Majesty's Theat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The School For Scandal
''The School for Scandal'' is a comedy of manners written by Richard Brinsley Sheridan. It was first performed in London at Drury Lane Theatre on 8 May 1777. Plot Act I Scene I: Lady Sneerwell, a wealthy young widow, and her hireling Snake discuss her various scandal-spreading plots. Snake asks why she is so involved in the affairs of Sir Peter Teazle, his ward Maria, and Charles and Joseph Surface, two young men under Sir Peter's informal guardianship, and why she has not yielded to the attentions of Joseph, who is highly respectable. Lady Sneerwell confides that Joseph desires Maria, who is an heiress, and that Maria desires Charles. Thus she and Joseph are plotting to alienate Maria from Charles by putting out rumours of an affair between Charles and Sir Peter's new young wife, Lady Teazle. Joseph arrives to confer with Lady Sneerwell. Maria herself then enters, fleeing the attentions of Sir Benjamin Backbite and his uncle, Crabtree. Mrs. Candour enters and ironically ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Susanna Centlivre
Susanna Centlivre (c. 1669 (baptised) – 1 December 1723), born Susanna Freeman, and also known professionally as Susanna Carroll, was an English poet, actress, and "the most successful female playwright of the eighteenth century". Centlivre's "pieces continued to be acted after the theatre managers had forgotten most of her contemporaries." During a long career at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, she became known as the second woman of the English stage, after Aphra Behn. Life The main source of information on Centlivre's early life is Giles Jacob, who claimed he had received an account of it directly from her. This was published in ''The Poetical Register'' of 1719, yet it includes little information about her early life. Centlivre was probably baptised Susanna Freeman at Whaplode, Lincolnshire on 20 November 1669, as the daughter of William Freeman of Holbeach and his wife, Anne, the daughter of Mr Marham, a gentleman of King's Lynn, Lynn Regis, Norfolk.J. Milling, "Centlivre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Love's Last Shift
''Love's Last Shift, or The Fool in Fashion'' is an English Restoration comedy by Colley Cibber from 1696. The play is regarded as an early herald of a shift in audience tastes away from the intellectualism and sexual frankness of Restoration comedy and towards the conservative certainties and gender role backlash of sentimental comedy. It is often described as "opportunistic" (Hume), containing as it does something for everybody: daring Restoration comedy sex scenes, sentimental reconciliations, and broad farce. Character list Men:Cibber, Colley. Love's last shift: or, the fool in fashion. A comedy, as it is acted at the Theatre Royal in Drury-Lane, by Their Majesties servants. Written by C. Cibber. London, 1735. Eighteenth Century Collections Online. Gale. 27 Sept. 2009 . * Sir William Wisewoud, a rich old gentleman who fancies himself a great master of his passion, which he only is in trivial matters * Loveless, of a debauched life, grew weary of his wife in six months ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Country Wife
''The Country Wife'' is a Restoration comedy written by William Wycherley and first performed in 1675. A product of the tolerant early Restoration period, the play reflects an aristocratic and anti-Puritan ideology, and was controversial for its sexual explicitness even in its own time. The title contains a lewd pun with regard to the first syllable of "country". It is based on several plays by Molière, with added features that 1670s London audiences demanded: colloquial prose dialogue in place of Molière's verse, a complicated, fast-paced plot tangle, and many sex jokes. It turns on two indelicate plot devices: a rake's trick of pretending impotence to safely have clandestine affairs with married women, and the arrival in London of an inexperienced young "country wife", with her discovery of the joys of town life, especially the fascinating London men. The implied condition the Rake, Horner, claimed to suffer from was, he said, contracted in France whilst "dealing with c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
All For Love (play)
''All for Love; or, the World Well Lost'', is a 1677 heroic drama by John Dryden which is now his best-known and most performed play. It is dedicated to Earl of Danby. It is a tragedy written in blank verse and is an attempt on Dryden's part to reinvigorate serious drama. It is an acknowledged imitation of Shakespeare’s ''Antony and Cleopatra'', and focuses on the last hours of the lives of its hero and heroine. Background Although it ostensibly deals with the same topic as Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra, Dryden confines the action to Alexandria and focuses on the end of their doomed relationship. It first appeared in 1677, was revived in 1704 and performed 123 times between 1700 and 1800, becoming the preferred version of the story; Shakespeare's play did not reappear on the London stage until 1813. The original 1677 production by the King's Company starred Charles Hart as Marc Antony and Elizabeth Boutell as Cleopatra Cleopatra VII Thea Philopator (; The na ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
