Incorporated Stage Society
The Incorporated Stage Society, commonly known as the Stage Society, was an English theatre society with limited membership which mounted private Sunday performances of new and experimental plays, mainly at the Royal Court Theatre (whose Vedrenne- Barker management is said to have originated in the Society's work) but also at other London West End venues. Founded in 1899 "to regenerate the Drama", it followed the Independent Theatre Society in this activity. Its plays particularly included the first performances of plays that had been banned for public performance by the Lord Chamberlain. George Bernard Shaw, Harley Granville Barker, St. John Hankin, Gilbert Murray and Clifford Bax were all involved with the company. Its council decided in 1930 that the rise of other groups like the Gate Theatre meant the Society's work was complete and, though a 1930 proposal for its dissolution was defeated, it fell into abeyance on the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939. Its aims were ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Royal Court Theatre
The Royal Court Theatre, at different times known as the Court Theatre, the New Chelsea Theatre, and the Belgravia Theatre, is a non-commercial West End theatre in Sloane Square, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, England. In 1956 it was acquired by and remains the home of the English Stage Company, which is known for its contributions to contemporary theatre and won the Europe Prize Theatrical Realities in 1999. History The first theatre The first theatre on Lower George Street, off Sloane Square, was the converted Nonconformist Ranelagh Chapel, opened as a theatre in 1870 under the name The New Chelsea Theatre. Marie Litton became its manager in 1871, hiring Walter Emden to remodel the interior, and it was renamed the Court Theatre. Several of W. S. Gilbert's early plays were staged here, including ''Randall's Thumb'', ''Creatures of Impulse'' (with music by Alberto Randegger), ''Great Expectations'' (adapted from the Dickens novel), and ''On Gu ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Royalty Theatre
The Royalty Theatre was a small London theatre situated at 73 Dean Street, Soho. Established by the actress Frances Maria Kelly in 1840, it opened as Miss Kelly's Theatre and Dramatic School and finally closed to the public in 1938.Royalty Theatre at the Arthur Lloyd site accessed 23 March 2007 The architect was . The theatre's opening was ill-fated, and it was little used for a decade. It changed its name twice and was used by an opera company, amateur drama companies and for French pieces. In 1861, it was renamed the New Royalty Theatre, and the next year it was leased by Mrs Charles Selby, who enlarged it from 20 ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Journey's End
''Journey's End'' is a 1928 dramatic play by English playwright R. C. Sherriff, set in the trenches near Saint-Quentin, Aisne, towards the end of the First World War. The story plays out in the officers' dugout of a British Army infantry company from 18 March 1918 to 21 March 1918, providing a glimpse of the officers' lives in the last few days before Operation Michael. The play was first performed at the Apollo Theatre in London by the Incorporated Stage Society on 9 December 1928, starring a young Laurence Olivier, and soon moved to other West End theatres for a two-year run. It was included in Burns Mantle's ''The Best Plays of 1928–1929''. The piece quickly became internationally popular, with numerous productions and tours in English and other languages. A 1930 film version was followed by other adaptations, and the play set a high standard for other works dealing with similar themes, and influenced playwrights including Noël Coward. It was Sherriff's seventh play. He ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Martita Hunt
Martita Edith Hunt (30 January 190013 June 1969) was an Argentine-born British theatre and film actress. She had a dominant stage presence and played a wide range of powerful characters. She is best remembered for her performance as Miss Havisham in David Lean's '' Great Expectations''. Biography Early life Hunt was born in Buenos Aires on 30 January 1900 to English parents Alfred and Marta (née Burnett) Hunt. She spent the first 20 years of her life in Argentina before she travelled with her parents to the United Kingdom to attend Queenwood Ladies' College in Eastbourne and then to train as an actress. Early theatrical career Hunt began her acting career in repertory theatre at Liverpool before moving to London. She first appeared there in the Stage Society's production of Ernst Toller's ''The Machine Wreckers'' at the Kingsway Theatre in May 1923. From 1923 to 1929, she appeared as the Principessa della Cercola in W. Somerset Maugham's '' Our Betters'' (Globe, 1924) ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Novelty Theatre
The Novelty Theatre (later renamed the Great Queen Street Theatre from 1900 to 1907, and the Kingsway Theatre from 1907 to 1941) was a London theatre. It opened in 1882 in Great Queen Street and was accessed off Little Queen Street until 1905, and from the new Kingsway road from 1905 onwards. It hosted the London premiere of ''A Doll's House'' in 1889. The theatre closed in 1941 and was demolished in 1959. History The first theatre on the site was built to designs by Thomas Verity with decorations by E. W. Bradwell, and opened on 9 December 1882. Its first show was the comic opera ''Melita or the Parsee's Daughter'',"Novelty Theatre, Great Queen Street, Holborn, London" Arthur Lloyd (2008) composed by Henry Pontet, with a libretto by Juba Kennerley. It hosted, among other notable wo ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Ernst Toller
Ernst Toller (1 December 1893 – 22 May 1939) was a German author, playwright, left-wing politician and revolutionary, known for his Expressionism (theatre), Expressionist plays. He served in 1919 for six days as President of the short-lived Bavarian Soviet Republic, after which he became the head of its army. He was imprisoned for five years for his part in the armed resistance by the Bavarian Soviet Republic to the central government in Berlin. While in prison Toller wrote several plays that gained him international renown. They were performed in London and New York City as well as in Berlin. In 1933 Toller was exiled from Germany after the Nazis came to power. He did a lecture tour in 1936–1937 in the United States and Canada, settling in California for a while before going to New York. He joined other exiles there. He died by suicide in May 1939. In 2000, several of his plays were published in an English translation. The most recent comprehensive biography of Toller ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Frederick Herbert Trench
Frederic Herbert Trench (12 November 1865 – 11 June 1923) was an Irish poet. Life Trench was born in Avonmore, County Cork, and educated at Haileybury and Keble College, Oxford. From 1891 he worked as an examiner for the Board of Education. In 1908 a Dramatic Symphony, opus 51, written by Joseph Holbrooke setting Trench's poem ''Apollo and the Seaman'' was performed, under Thomas Beecham. Trench then moved into theatrical work for a few years, collaborating with his friend Thomas Evelyn Scott-Ellis, 8th Baron Howard de Walden. They put on ''The Blue Bird'' by Maeterlinck in 1909, and Ibsen's ''The Pretenders'' in 1913, at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket. Afterwards, he spent time travelling. He died in Boulogne-sur-Mer. Some of his other poems were set to music by Arnold Bax and Mildred Lund Tyson. Works *''Deirdre Wed and other Poems'' (1901) *''New Poems'' (1907) *''Lyrics and Narrative Poems'' (1911?) *''Ode from Italy in time of War'' (1915) *''Napoleon'' (1919) play ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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George Calderon
George Leslie Calderon (2 December 1868 – 4 June 1915) was an English writer. He was one of the most knowledgeable Englishmen of his generation about Russian life and literature. Life Calderon was born in St John's Wood, the fifth son of the Victorian painter Philip Hermogenes Calderon, and educated at Rugby and Trinity College, Oxford, before training as a barrister. From 1895 to 1897 he worked in Russia as a teacher, journalist and scholar, then returned to England, learned several other Slavonic languages and in 1900 became an assistant librarian at the British Museum. During this time he pursued his research into Slavonic folklore, married, and published many stories, articles and translations. In 1903, Calderon left the British Museum to become a full-time writer. In 1906 he lived for two months on Tahiti. On his return, he regularly reviewed for the ''Times Literary Supplement''. Calderon was the first person to translate into English and successfully direct a full-lengt ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Waste (play)
''Waste'' is a play by the English author Harley Granville Barker. It exists in two wholly different versions, from 1906 and 1927. The first version was refused a licence by the Lord Chamberlain and had to be performed privately by the Stage Society in 1907; the second was finally staged in public at the Westminster Theatre in 1936. Plot The plot centres around ambitious independent politician Henry Trebell, his plans for a bill to disestablish the Church of England and his fall from grace and suicide after his affair with married woman Amy O'Connell, who dies after a botched abortion. The title may refer to the waste of his potential talents due to the scandal, the loss of the disestablishment bill and the termination of Amy's pregnancy. Dramatis personae (1927 version) *Gilbert Wedgecroft, Trebell's doctor *Walter Kent, Trebell's secretary *Amy O'Connell, Trebell's lover *Russell Blackborough, Tory MP and financier *Justin O'Connell, Amy's estranged Irish husband *Lord Cha ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Joseph Conrad
Joseph Conrad (born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski, ; 3 December 1857 – 3 August 1924) was a Poles in the United Kingdom#19th century, Polish-British novelist and short story writer. He is regarded as one of the greatest writers in the English language; though he did not speak English fluently until his twenties, he came to be regarded a master prose stylist who brought a non-English sensibility into English literature. He wrote novels and stories, many in nautical settings, that depict crises of human individuality in the midst of what he saw as an indifferent, inscrutable and amoral world. Conrad is considered a Impressionism (literature), literary impressionist by some and an early Literary modernism, modernist by others, though his works also contain elements of 19th-century Literary realism, realism. His narrative style and anti-heroic characters, as in ''Lord Jim'', for example, have influenced numerous authors. Many dramatic films have been adapted from and ins ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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John Bull's Other Island
''John Bull's Other Island'' is a comedy about Ireland, written by George Bernard Shaw in 1904. Shaw himself was born in Dublin, yet this is one of only two plays of his where he thematically returned to his homeland, the other being ''O'Flaherty V.C. ''O'Flaherty V.C., A Recruiting Pamphlet'' (1915) is a comic one-act play written during World War I by George Bernard Shaw. The plot is about an Irish soldier in the British army returning home after winning the Victoria Cross. The play was writt ...'' The play was highly successful in its day, but is rarely revived, probably because so much of the dialogue is specific to the politics of the day. Characters and original cast *Tom Broadbent – Louis Calvert *Larry Doyle – J. L. Shine *Tim Haffigan – Percival Stevens *Hodson – Nigel Playfair *Peter Keegan – Harley Granville Barker *Patsey Farrell – Graham Browne *Father Dempsey – Charles Daly *Corney Doyle – F. Cremlin *Barney Doran – Wilfred Shine *Matthew Haffigan ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Imperial Theatre, London
The Royal Aquarium and Winter Garden was a place of amusement in Westminster, London. It opened in 1876, and the building was demolished in 1903. The attraction was located northwest of Westminster Abbey on Tothill Street. The building was designed by Alfred Bedborough in an ornamental style faced with Portland stone. The Aquarium Theatre was located in the west end of the building and was renamed the Imperial Theatre in 1879. Methodist Central Hall now occupies the site. History The Royal Aquarium opened on 22 January 1876. Its board of directors included Henry Labouchère, the financier and journalist; William Whiteley the retailer; and Arthur Sullivan, the composer. It was intended to offer art exhibitions, concerts and plays, among other intellectual entertainments such as The Crystal Palace.''The R ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |