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A Plot And No Plot
''A Plot and No Plot'' is a 1697 comedy play by the English writer John Dennis. The original Drury Lane cast included Thomas Doggett as Bull senior, Colley Cibber as Bull junior, William Pinkethman as Baldernoe, Joseph Haines as Rumour, William Bullock as Frowzy, Jane Rogers as Sylvia and Mary Kent Mary Kent (before 1692 – after 1718) was an English actress, whose career lasted from 1692 to 1718, and the wife of Drury Lane actor Thomas Kent. Her dates of birth and death are not known. Mary Kent appeared in many playbills from 1692 onwards ... as Friskit.Van Lennep p.478 References Bibliography * Lowerre, Kathryn. ''Music and Musicians on the London Stage, 1695-1705''. Routledge, 2017. * Van Lennep, W. ''The London Stage, 1660-1800: Volume One, 1660-1700''. Southern Illinois University Press, 1960 . * Watson, George. ''The New Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature: Volume 2, 1660-1800''. Cambridge University Press, 1971. 1697 plays English plays West End plays ...
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John Dennis (dramatist)
John Dennis (16 September 1658 – 6 January 1734) was an English critic and dramatist. Life He was born in the parish of St Andrew Holborn, London, in 1658. He was educated at Harrow School and Caius College, Cambridge, where he took his B.A. degree in 1679. In the next year he was fined and dismissed from his college for having wounded a fellow student with a sword. He was, however, received at Trinity Hall, where he took his M.A. degree in 1683. After travelling in France and Italy, he settled in London, where he became acquainted with Dryden, and close to Wycherley, Congreve and the leading literary figures of his day; and being made temporarily independent by inheriting a small fortune, he devoted himself to literature. The Duke of Marlborough procured him a place as one of the queen's waiters in the customs with a salary of £20 a year. This he afterwards disposed of for a small sum, retaining, at the suggestion of Lord Halifax, a yearly charge upon it for a long term ...
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Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, commonly known as Drury Lane, is a West End theatre and Grade I listed building in Covent Garden, London, England. The building faces Catherine Street (earlier named Bridges or Brydges Street) and backs onto Drury Lane. The building is the most recent in a line of four theatres which were built at the same location, the earliest of which dated back to 1663, making it the oldest theatre site in London still in use. According to the author Peter Thomson, for its first two centuries, Drury Lane could "reasonably have claimed to be London's leading theatre". For most of that time, it was one of a handful of patent theatres, granted monopoly rights to the production of "legitimate" drama in London (meaning spoken plays, rather than opera, dance, concerts, or plays with music). The first theatre on the site was built at the behest of Thomas Killigrew in the early 1660s, when theatres were allowed to reopen during the English Restoration. Initially ...
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London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a major settlement for two millennia. The City of London, its ancient core and financial centre, was founded by the Romans as '' Londinium'' and retains its medieval boundaries.See also: Independent city § National capitals The City of Westminster, to the west of the City of London, has for centuries hosted the national government and parliament. Since the 19th century, the name "London" has also referred to the metropolis around this core, historically split between the counties of Middlesex, Essex, Surrey, Kent, and Hertfordshire, which largely comprises Greater London, governed by the Greater London Authority.The Greater London Authority consists of the Mayor of London and the London Assembly. The London Mayor is distinguished fr ...
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Comedy Play
Comedy is a genre of dramatic performance having a light or humorous tone that depicts amusing incidents and in which the characters ultimately triumph over adversity. For ancient Greeks and Romans, a comedy was a stage-play with a happy ending. In the Middle Ages, the term expanded to include narrative poems with happy endings and a lighter tone. In this sense Dante used the term in the title of his poem, the ''Divine Comedy'' (Italian: ''Divina Commedia''). The phenomena connected with laughter and that which provokes it have been carefully investigated by psychologists. The predominating characteristics are incongruity or contrast in the object, and shock or emotional seizure on the part of the subject. It has also been held that the feeling of superiority is an essential factor: thus Thomas Hobbes speaks of laughter as a "sudden glory." Modern investigators have paid much attention to the origin both of laughter and of smiling, as well as the development of the "play insti ...
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Thomas Doggett
Thomas Doggett (or Dogget) (20 September 1721) was an Irish actor. The birth date of 1640 seems unlikely. A more probable date of 1670 is given in the Encyclopædia Britannica. Biography Doggett was born in Dublin, and made his first stage appearance in London in 1691 as Nincompoop in Thomas D'Urfey's ''Love for Money''. In this part, and as Solon in the same author's ''The Marriage-Hater Matched'', he became popular. He followed Betterton to Lincoln's Inn Fields, creating the part of Ben, specially written for him, in William Congreve's ''Love for Love'', with which the theatre opened (1695); and the following year played Young Hobb in his own play, ''The Country Wake''. He was associated with Colley Cibber and others in the management of the Theatre Royal, Haymarket, and Drury Lane, and he continued to play comedy parts at the former until his retirement in 1713. Doggett is highly spoken of by his contemporaries, both as an actor and as a man, and is frequently referred t ...
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Colley Cibber
Colley Cibber (6 November 1671 – 11 December 1757) was an English actor-manager, playwright and Poet Laureate. His colourful memoir ''Apology for the Life of Colley Cibber'' (1740) describes his life in a personal, anecdotal and even rambling style. He wrote 25 plays for his own company at Drury Lane, half of which were adapted from various sources, which led Robert Lowe and Alexander Pope, among others, to criticise his "miserable mutilation" of "crucified Molière ndhapless Shakespeare". He regarded himself as first and foremost an actor and had great popular success in comical fop parts, while as a tragic actor he was persistent but much ridiculed. Cibber's brash, extroverted personality did not sit well with his contemporaries, and he was frequently accused of tasteless theatrical productions, shady business methods, and a social and political opportunism that was thought to have gained him the laureateship over far better poets. He rose to ignominious fame when he became t ...
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William Pinkethman
William Pinkethman(also Penkethman, Pinkeman, Pinkerman, etc.; nicknamed Pinkey) (c.1660–1725) was an English comic actor, a low comedian with a droll style, and theatre manager. He was considered an imitator of Anthony Leigh. Starting in the 1690s Penkethman performed with the United Company at Drury Lane. He largely played small roles, then became known for his delivery of prologues and epilogues in plays. He was known for performing riding a donkey. He later opened a theatre at Richmond. Rising actor Pinkethman overcame a weakness for overacting and playing to the crowd to become a steady performer. He is first heard of at the Theatre Royal, in 1692, in Thomas Shadwell's '' The Volunteers'', in which he played Stitchum the tailor, an original part of six lines. After the departure in 1695 of Thomas Betterton and his associates, Pinkethman was promoted to a better line of parts. In 1702 he was the original Old Mirabel in George Farquhar's ''The Inconstant''. He also r ...
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Joseph Haines
Joseph Haines (died 4 April 1701), also known as Jo Haines, was a 17th-century actor, singer, dancer, guitar player, fortune teller, and author. ''The Life of the Late Famous Comedian, Jo. Hayns'', possibly written by fellow player Tobias Thomas, "must contain some grains of truth, but is so riddled with fancy that one can scarcely sort them out", according to the ''Biographical Dictionary of Actors'' (Highfill, et al. 1973–93). Nothing certain is known of Haines' early life. He joined a troupe of strolling players in Cambridge in 1667, joined a company of young performers at the Hatton Garden "nursery" in London in 1668, and there caught the eye of Thomas Killigrew and was invited to join Killigrew's patent company, the King's Company. Haines soon became well known as a song-and-dance man, comedian, and eccentric. He was persistently dogged by debt and money problems, and was several times fired from the company for "ill & scandalous language & insolent carriage" by leadi ...
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William Bullock (actor)
William Bullock (''c.'' 1657 – ''c.'' 1740) was an English actor, "of great glee and much comic vivacity." He played at all the London theatres of his time, and in the summer at a booth at Bartholomew Fair. Life Bullock's name is mentioned in Downes's "Roscius Anglicanus." He first appears in the cast of Colley Cibber's "Love's Last Shift," produced by the associated companies of Drury Lane and Dorset Garden, 1696. In Cibber's piece he played Sly. He had joined the companies the previous year. Among his original characters were Sir Tunbelly Clumsy in the "Relapse," 1697, and Soto in ''She Would and She Would Not'' 1702. He also played with success many parts in the plays of John Dryden, William Wycherley, Thomas Shadwell. Until 1706, he was at Drury Lane. He then went to the Haymarket, returning to Drury Lane in 1708. After another brief migration to the Haymarket, followed by a new return to Drury Lane, he quitted definitely the latter theatre, 1715–16, for Lincoln's Inn Field ...
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Jane Rogers (17th-century Actress)
Jane Rogers (died 1718) was an English stage actress. To distinguish her from her daughter she is sometimes referred to as Jane Rogers the Elder. She first appeared at Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in 1692 in Thomas Shadwell's '' The Volunteers''. Following the split of the United Company in 1695, she remained at Drury Lane with Christopher Rich's company rather than join the breakaways under Thomas Betterton. She benefited from the departed of Anne Bracegirdle with whom she had been competing for roles and became one of the leading members of the company. Sometimes in the 1690s she gave birth to Jane Rogers reportedly following a liaison with fellow actor Robert Wilks. Her daughter later became an actress as part of the Lincoln's Inn Fields company, where she married Christopher Bullock and was consequently known by his surname. The elder Rogers continued at Drury Lane until 1706, when she switched to the new Queen's Theatre in the Haymarket. She then returned to Drury Lane where ...
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Mary Kent
Mary Kent (before 1692 – after 1718) was an English actress, whose career lasted from 1692 to 1718, and the wife of Drury Lane actor Thomas Kent. Her dates of birth and death are not known. Mary Kent appeared in many playbills from 1692 onwards in London, playing minor parts in the United Company until the company's tumultuous breakup in 1695. She and her husband remained with the depleted parent troupe when the senior actors walked out to set up their own cooperative company, and during the consequent brief actor shortage at Drury Lane, she played more important parts, notably Flareit in Colley Cibber's ''Love's Last Shift'' and young Tom Fashion (as a breeches role) in John Vanbrugh's ''The Relapse'' in 1697. This role came at a time when it was common for boys to be portrayed by actresses and her casting was described as perhaps "an attempt to defuse the homosexual suggestions in his (Tom Fashion's) relationship with Coupler." She continued to appear in minor roles at Drury L ...
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1697 Plays
Events January–March * January 8 – Thomas Aikenhead is hanged outside Edinburgh, becoming the last person in Great Britain to be executed for blasphemy. * January 11 – French writer Charles Perrault releases the book ''Histoires ou contes du temps passé'' (literally "Tales of Past Times", known in England as "Mother Goose tales") in Paris, a collection of popular fairy tales, including ''Cinderella'', ''Puss in Boots'', ''Red Riding Hood'', ''The Sleeping Beauty'' and ''Bluebeard''. * February 8 – The English infantry regiment of Arthur Chichester, 3rd Earl of Donegall is disbanded four years after it was first raised. * February 22 – Gerrit de Heere becomes the new Governor of Dutch Ceylon, succeeding Thomas van Rhee and administering the colony for almost six years until his death. * February 26 – Conquistador Martín de Ursúa y Arizmendi and 114 soldiers arrive at Lake Petén Itzá in what is now Guatemala and begin the Spanish conquest of Guatemala with a ...
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