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Dorothy (opera)
''Dorothy'' is a comic opera in three acts with music by Alfred Cellier and a libretto by B. C. Stephenson. The story involves a rake who falls in love with his disguised fiancée. It was first produced at the Gaiety Theatre in London in 1886. After a rocky start, it was revised and transferred to the Prince of Wales Theatre later that year and then transferred to the Lyric Theatre in 1888, where it played until 1889. The piece had an initial run of 931 performances, breaking the record for the longest-running musical theatre production in history and holding this record until the run of the musical play '' A Chinese Honeymoon'' in the early 1900s. ''Dorothy'' also toured in Britain, America and Australia and enjoyed numerous revivals until at least 1908. The piece was popular with amateur theatre groups, particularly in Britain, until World War II. The show's hit songs included the ballad "Queen of My Heart", "Be Wise In Time", "Hark For'ard!", "With A Welcome To All", an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hayden Coffin
Charles Hayden Coffin (22 April 1862 – 8 December 1935) was an English actor and singer known for his performances in many famous Edwardian musical comedies, particularly those produced by George Edwardes. Hayden achieved fame as Harry Sherwood in '' Dorothy'' (1886), which became the longest-running piece of musical theatre in history up to that time; other similar roles followed. In 1893, he joined the company of George Edwardes and starred in a series of extraordinarily successful musical comedies, including '' A Gaiety Girl'' (1893), '' An Artist's Model'' (1895), ''The Geisha'' (1896), '' A Greek Slave'' (1898), ''San Toy'' (1899), ''A Country Girl'' (1903), '' Veronique'' (1904), ''The Girl Behind the Counter'' (1906), ''Tom Jones'' (1907) and '' The Quaker Girl'' (1910). In his later years, Coffin found success in Shakespearean roles such as Feste in ''Twelfth Night'' (1912), and in musicals, a few films and other works, such as the classic comedy ''The School for S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oliver Goldsmith
Oliver Goldsmith (10 November 1728 – 4 April 1774) was an Anglo-Irish novelist, playwright, dramatist and poet, who is best known for his novel ''The Vicar of Wakefield'' (1766), his pastoral poem ''The Deserted Village'' (1770), and his plays ''The Good-Natur'd Man'' (1768) and ''She Stoops to Conquer'' (1771, first performed in 1773). He is thought to have written the classic children's tale ''The History of Little Goody Two-Shoes'' (1765). Biography Goldsmith's birth date and year are not known with certainty. According to the Library of Congress authority file, he told a biographer that he was born on 10 November 1728. The location of his birthplace is also uncertain. He was born either in the townland of Pallas, near Ballymahon, County Longford, Ireland, where his father was the Anglican curate of the parish of Forgney, or at the residence of his maternal grandparents, at the Smith Hill House near Elphin in County Roscommon, where his grandfather Oliver Jones was a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aphra Behn
Aphra Behn (; bapt. 14 December 1640 – 16 April 1689) was an English playwright, poet, prose writer and translator from the Restoration era. As one of the first English women to earn her living by her writing, she broke cultural barriers and served as a literary role model for later generations of women authors. Rising from obscurity, she came to the notice of Charles II, who employed her as a spy in Antwerp. Upon her return to London and a probable brief stay in debtors' prison, she began writing for the stage. She belonged to a coterie of poets and famous libertines such as John Wilmot, Lord Rochester. Behn wrote under the pastoral pseudonym Astrea. During the turbulent political times of the Exclusion Crisis, she wrote an epilogue and prologue that brought her into legal trouble; she thereafter devoted most of her writing to prose genres and translations. A staunch supporter of the Stuart line, she declined an invitation from Bishop Burnet to write a welcoming p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David Garrick
David Garrick (19 February 1717 – 20 January 1779) was an English actor, playwright, 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 a number of amateur theatricals, and with his appearance in the title role of Shakespeare's '' Richard III'', audiences and managers began to take notice. Impressed by his portrayals of Richard III and a number of other roles, Charles Fleetwood engaged Garrick for a season at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in the West End. He remained with the Drury Lane company for the next five years and purchased a share of the theatre with 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, three years after his retirement from Drury Lane and the stage, he was given a lavish public funeral ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charley's Aunt
''Charley's Aunt'' is a farce in three acts written by Brandon Thomas. The story centres on Lord Fancourt Babberley, an undergraduate whose friends Jack and Charley persuade him to impersonate the latter's aunt. The complications of the plot include the arrival of the real aunt and the attempts of an elderly fortune hunter to woo the bogus aunt. The play concludes with three pairs of young lovers united, along with an older pair – Charley's real aunt and Jack's widowed father. The play was first performed at the Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds in February 1892. It then opened in London at the Royalty Theatre on 21 December 1892 and quickly transferred to the larger Globe Theatre on 30 January 1893. The production broke the historic record for longest-running play worldwide, running for 1,466 performances. It was produced by the actor W. S. Penley, a friend of Thomas, who appeared as Babberley. The play was also a success on Broadway in 1893, and in Paris, where it had further ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Our Boys
''Our Boys'' is a comedy in three acts written by Henry James Byron, first performed in London on 16 January 1875 at the Vaudeville Theatre. Until it was surpassed by the run of ''Charley's Aunt'' in the 1890s, it was the world's longest-running play, up to that time, with 1,362 performances until April 1879. Theatre owner David James (1839–93) was Perkyn in the production. The production also toured extensively. The play contains the famous line, "Life’s too short for chess." The piece played in New York in 1875, at the New Fifth Avenue Theatre, and in 1907 at the Lyric Theatre. It also played in Philadelphia. Arthur Williams appeared in a 1914 London revival of the piece. Roles *Sir Geoffrey Champneys (a county magnate) – William Farren Jr. *Talbot Champneys (his son, a washed-out youth) – Thomas Thorne *Perkyn Middlewick (a retired butterman) – David James *Charles Middlewick (his aristocratic-looking son) – Charles Warner *Poddles (Middlewick's butler) ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Florence Perry
Florence Perry (13 July 1869 – 19 December 1949) was an English opera singer and actress best known for her performances with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company. Biography Florence Julia Perry was born in London in 1869. Her first professional appearance was in 1887 as Phyllis Tuppitt in ''Dorothy'' at the Prince of Wales's Theatre. She then toured in ''The Red Hussar'' and '' Doris''. Shortly after her return to London, she was hired by the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company. Perry toured with the company from 1890 to 1893, appearing as Yum-Yum in ''The Mikado'', Gianetta in ''The Gondoliers'', Phyllis in ''Iolanthe'', Winifred in ''The Vicar of Bray'' and Phoebe Fairleigh in ''Billee Taylor''. Her elder sister, Beatrice (1865-1944), also performed with the company beginning in 1892.Stone, DavidBeatrice Perry (1891–98) Who Was Who in the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, 6 July 2020, accessed 26 July 2020 Perry then joined the London company in 1893 to create the role of Milly (later ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marie Tempest
Dame Mary Susan Etherington, (15 July 1864 – 15 October 1942), known professionally as Marie Tempest, was an English singer and actress. Tempest became a famous soprano in late Victorian light opera and Edwardian musical comedies. Later, she became a leading comic actress and toured widely in North America and elsewhere. She was, at times, her own theatre manager during a career spanning 55 years. She was also instrumental in the founding of the actors' union Equity in Britain. Life and career Tempest was born in London. Her parents were Edwin Etherington (1838–1880), a stationer, and his wife, Sarah Mary (''née'' Castle). She had a sister, Florence Etherington, who married the theatre manager Michael Levenston. Tempest was educated at Midhurst School and an Ursuline convent in Tildonk, Belgium. Later, she studied music in Paris and at the Royal Academy of Music in London, as a singing pupil of Manuel García, the tutor of Jenny Lind, Mathilde Marchesi and Charles San ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ben Davies (singer)
Ben Davies (6 January 1858 – 28 March 1943) was a Welsh tenor singer, who appeared in opera with the Carl Rosa Opera Company, in operetta and light opera, and on the concert and oratorio platform. He was spoken of as a successor of Edward Lloyd, as a leading British tenor, and retained something of his style and repertoire in concert performance. Training and operatic career, 1881–1891 Ben Davies was born in Pontardawe, Wales. He studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London under Alberto Randegger and Signor Fiori. He made his debut in 1881 in Michael Balfe's ''The Bohemian Girl'', and in the following ten years devoted himself principally to the operatic stage. In 1883 he created the role of Gringoire in Arthur Goring Thomas's '' Esmeralda'', in the first Carl Rosa season at Drury Lane Theatre: his future wife Clara Perry was in the cast as Fleur-de-lys. In that time he began to assume the mantle of Edward Lloyd, as the leading British operatic tenor. In 1887 he ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Victorian Burlesque
Victorian burlesque, sometimes known as travesty or extravaganza, is a genre of theatrical entertainment that was popular in Victorian era, Victorian England and in the New York theatre of the mid-19th century. It is a form of parody music, parody in which a well-known opera or piece of classical theatre or ballet is adapted into a broad comic play, usually a musical play, usually risqué in style, mocking the theatrical and musical conventions and styles of the original work, and often quoting or pastiche, pastiching text or music from the original work. Victorian burlesque is one of several forms of burlesque. Like ballad opera, burlesques featured musical scores drawing on a wide range of music, from popular contemporary songs to operatic arias, although later burlesques, from the 1880s, sometimes featured original scores. Dance played an important part, and great attention was paid to the staging, costumes and other spectacular elements of stagecraft, as many of the pieces we ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
