Harry Brodribb Irving
Harry Brodribb Irving (5 August 1870 – 17 October 1919), was a British stage actor and actor-manager; the eldest son of Sir Henry Irving and his wife Florence ( née O'Callaghan), and father of designer Laurence Irving and actress Elizabeth Irving. Early life Although, as a child, he appeared a couple of times in his father's productions, it was intended that he would become a lawyer. He attended Marlborough College and New College, Oxford where he studied law and appeared in some student productions. Afterwards, in 1894, he was called to the Bar at the Inner Temple, but instead of pursuing a career as a barrister he decided to become an actor, taking the stage name H. B. Irving to distinguish himself from his father. Career His first appearance on the stage, at age of twenty-one, was at the ''Garrick Theatre, London'', in ''School''. In 1906 he toured with success throughout the United States, appearing in plays made memorable by his father, ''The Lyons Mail'', ''Charle ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Ancestry
An ancestor, also known as a forefather, fore-elder or a forebear, is a parent or (recursively) the parent of an antecedent (i.e., a grandparent, great-grandparent, great-great-grandparent and so forth). ''Ancestor'' is "any person from whom one is descended. In law, the person from whom an estate has been inherited." Two individuals have a genetic relationship if one is the ancestor of the other or if they share a common ancestor. In evolutionary theory, species which share an evolutionary ancestor are said to be of common descent. However, this concept of ancestry does not apply to some bacteria and other organisms capable of horizontal gene transfer. Some research suggests that the average person has twice as many female ancestors as male ancestors. This might have been due to the past prevalence of polygynous relations and female hypergamy. Assuming that all of an individual's ancestors are otherwise unrelated to each other, that individual has 2''n'' ancestors in the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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George Alexander (actor)
Sir George Alexander (19 June 185815 March 1918), born George Alexander Gibb Samson, was an English stage actor, theatre producer and Actor-manager, theatre manager. After acting on stage as an amateur he turned professional in 1879 and, over the next eleven years, he gained experience with leading producers and actor-managers, including Thomas William Robertson, Tom Robertson, Henry Irving and Madge Kendal, Madge and William Hunter Kendal, W. H. Kendal. During this time, Alexander became interested in theatre management. In 1890 he took a lease on a London theatre and began producing on his own account. The following year, he moved to the St James's Theatre, where he remained, acting and producing, for the rest of his career. Among the most successful of the new plays he presented were Oscar Wilde's ''Lady Windermere's Fan'' (1892), Arthur Wing Pinero, A. W. Pinero's ''The Second Mrs Tanqueray'' (1893) and Wilde's ''The Importance of Being Earnest'' (1895). Alexander followed ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Kings Theatre, Southsea
The Kings Theatre is a theatre in Southsea, Portsmouth, designed by the architect Frank Matcham. It opened on 30 September 1907. It is operated by the Kings Theatre Trust Ltd. The building was designated a Grade II* listed building in 1976. History The theatre opened on 30 September 1907 with a production of ''Charles I'' followed by two further of Sir Henry Irving's Works. During the 1930s it was used to premiere several works by Ian Hay before they transferred to the West End including '' Orders Are Orders'' and '' Admirals All''. The musical ''This'll Make You Whistle'' premiered there in 1935. The theatre stayed in the control of its original owners, The Portsmouth Theatre Company, until 1964 when it was purchased by Commander Reggie & Mrs Joan Cooper. In 1990 it was sold again to Hampshire County Council. In 2001, after a successful campaign by AKTER (Action for Kings Theatre Restoration) to keep the theatre open, the theatre was purchased by Portsmouth City Council and ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Lily Brayton
Elizabeth "Lily" Brayton (23 June 1876 – 30 April 1953) was an English actress and singer, known for her performances in Shakespeare plays and for her nearly 2,000 performances in the First World War hit musical ''Chu Chin Chow''. Early life and career Brayton was born in Hindley, Lancashire, the fourth daughter of a Lancashire doctor,''The Times'' obituary, 2 May 1953 John Grindal Brayton (1842–1892). Little is known of her early life. Her first stage performance was in Manchester in 1896, when she was in the cast of a production of Shakespeare's ''King Richard II''. She joined the F. R. Benson company, and in June 1898 she married Oscar Asche, a fellow company member. Her sister Agnes Brayton (1878–1957) was another member of the same company. In 1900 Brayton was chosen by Herbert Beerbohm Tree to create the part of Mariamne in his production of ''Herod''. In 1904 she and Asche formed their own theatrical company. In 1906 she played Iseult in Joseph Comyns Carr's ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Walter Hampden
Walter Hampden Dougherty (June 30, 1879 in Brooklyn – June 11, 1955 in Los Angeles), known professionally as Walter Hampden, was an American actor and theatre manager. He was a major stage star on Broadway in New York who also made numerous television and film appearances. Life and career Walter Hampden was the son of John Hampden Dougherty and Alice Hill. He was a younger brother of the American painter Paul Dougherty. He went to England for apprenticeship for six years. He graduated from what is now NYU Poly in 1900. Under Otho Stuart and Oscar Asche's co-management of the Adelphi Theatre in 1904 he appeared in ''The Prayer of the Sword'' and ''The Taming of the Shrew''. Later he played Hamlet, Henry V and Cyrano de Bergerac on Broadway. In 1925, he became actor-manager at the Colonial Theatre on Broadway, which was renamed Hampden's Theatre from 1925 to 1931. He became noted for his Shakespearean roles as well as for Cyrano, which he played in several productions betw ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Oscar Asche
John Stange(r) Heiss Oscar Asche (24 January 1871 – 23 March 1936), better known as Oscar Asche, was an Australian actor, director, and writer, best known for having written, directed, and acted in the record-breaking musical ''Chu Chin Chow'', both on stage and film, and for acting in, directing, or producing many Shakespeare plays and successful musicals."Oscar Asche (1871-1936)" National Library of Australia, accessed 5 April 2015 After studying acting in Norway and London, Asche made his London stage debut in 1893 and soon joined the F R Benson Company, where he remained for eight years, playing more than a hundred roles including important Shakespearean parts. He married the actress [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Adelphi Theatre
The Adelphi Theatre is a West End theatre, located on the Strand in the City of Westminster, central London. The present building is the fourth on the site. The theatre has specialised in comedy and musical theatre, and today it is a receiving house for a variety of productions, including many musicals. The theatre was Grade II listed for historical preservation on 1 December 1987. History 19th century It was founded in 1806 as the Sans Pareil ("Without Compare"), by merchant John Scott, and his daughter Jane (1770–1839). Jane was a British theatre manager, performer, and playwright. Together, they gathered a theatrical company and by 1809 the theatre was licensed for musical entertainments, pantomime, and burletta. She wrote more than fifty stage pieces in an array of genres: melodramas, pantomimes, farces, comic operettas, historical dramas, and adaptations, as well as translations. Jane Scott retired to Surrey in 1819, marrying John Davies Middleton (1790–186 ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Otho Stuart
Otho Stuart (9 August 1863 – 1 May 1930) was a British actor of the late 19th and early 20th centuries who specialised in performing in the plays of Shakespeare. Stuart played the range of Shakespearean leading men, both with the Company of Frank Benson (actor), F. R. Benson and with his own Company during his management of the Adelphi Theatre in London. Of independent means, he used his own money to help finance Benson's productions and his own. The theatre critic J. C. Trewin described him as 'one of the handsomest Oberons of all time.' Early career He was born as Otto Stuart Andreae in 1863 in Battersea, the youngest of six children born to Emelia ''née'' Sillem (1825–1899) and John Charles Andreae (1819–1892), a German-born naturalised British subject who was a Commissioner Merchant in Indigo. In 1881 Stuart was employed as a commercial clerk and made his professional stage début in 1886 in Frank Benson (actor), F. R. Benson's first season at the Shakespeare Memoria ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Hamlet
''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play, with 29,551 words. Set in Denmark, the play depicts Prince Hamlet and his attempts to exact revenge against his uncle, Claudius, who has murdered Hamlet's father in order to seize his throne and marry Hamlet's mother. ''Hamlet'' is considered among the "most powerful and influential tragedies in the English language", with a story capable of "seemingly endless retelling and adaptation by others". There are many works that have been pointed to as possible sources for Shakespeare's play—from ancient Greek tragedies to Elizabethan plays. The editors of the Arden Shakespeare question the idea of "source hunting", pointing out that it presupposes that authors always require ideas from other works for their own, and suggests that no author can have an original idea or be an originator. When ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Her Majesty's Theatre
Her Majesty's Theatre is a West End theatre situated on Haymarket, London, Haymarket in the City of Westminster, London. The present building was designed by Charles J. Phipps and was constructed in 1897 for actor-manager Herbert Beerbohm Tree, who established the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art at the theatre. In the early decades of the 20th century, Tree produced spectacular productions of William Shakespeare, Shakespeare and other classical works, and the theatre hosted premieres by major playwrights such as George Bernard Shaw, J. M. Synge, Noël Coward and J. B. Priestley. Since the First World War, the wide stage has made the theatre suitable for large-scale musical productions, and the theatre has accordingly specialised in hosting musical theatre, musicals. The theatre has been home to record-setting musical theatre runs, notably the First World War sensation ''Chu Chin Chow''Larkin, Colin (ed). ''Guinness Who's Who of Stage Musicals'' (Guinness Publishing, 1994) and the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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A Midsummer Night's Dream
''A Midsummer Night's Dream'' is a comedy written by William Shakespeare 1595 or 1596. The play is set in Athens, and consists of several subplots that revolve around the marriage of Theseus and Hippolyta. One subplot involves a conflict among four Athenian lovers. Another follows a group of six amateur actors rehearsing the play which they are to perform before the wedding. Both groups find themselves in a forest inhabited by fairies who manipulate the humans and are engaged in their own domestic intrigue. The play is one of Shakespeare's most popular and is widely performed. Characters * Theseus—Duke of Athens * Hippolyta—Queen of the Amazons * Egeus—father of Hermia * Hermia—daughter of Egeus, in love with Lysander * Lysander—in love with Hermia * Demetrius—suitor to Hermia * Helena—in love with Demetrius * Philostrate—Master of the Revels * Peter Quince—a carpenter * Nick Bottom—a weaver * Francis Flute—a bellows-mender * Tom Snout—a tinker * ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Herbert Beerbohm Tree
Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree (17 December 1852 – 2 July 1917) was an English actor and theatre manager. Tree began performing in the 1870s. By 1887, he was managing the Haymarket Theatre in the West End, winning praise for adventurous programming and lavish productions, and starring in many of its productions. In 1899, he helped fund the rebuilding, and became manager, of His Majesty's Theatre. Again, he promoted a mix of Shakespeare and classic plays with new works and adaptations of popular novels, giving them spectacular productions in this large house, and often playing leading roles. His wife, actress Helen Maud Holt, often played opposite him and assisted him with management of the theatres. Although Tree was regarded as a versatile and skilled actor, particularly in character roles, by his later years his technique was seen as mannered and old-fashioned. He founded the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in 1904 and was knighted for his contributions to theatre in 1909 ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |