|
Moor Street Theatre
The Moor Street Theatre was the first regular theatre – as distinct from earlier booths and converted barns for strolling players – to be established in Birmingham, England. Located in a back yard between Moor Street and Park Street north of the Bull Ring, it opened in 1740 with a performance of "Oratorio with Vocal and Instrumental Musick". Although the theatre was not purpose-built for dramatic performances, surviving records show that it had boxes, a pit, a balcony and two galleries, together with significant backstage machinery, suggesting that it was a substantial structure. Plays were performed on Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings between July and October. During cold weather the theatre was heated by burning fires for two days before a performance. Like all early Birmingham theatres the Moor Street Theatre was not licensed for dramatic performance, so technically charged for the performance of music during the interval - the play itself being given free of charge. T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Theater (structure)
A theater, theatre or playhouse, is a structure where theatre, theatrical works, performing arts and musical Concert, concerts are presented. The theater building serves to define the performance and audience spaces. The facility usually is organized to provide support areas for performers, the technical crew and the audience members, as well as the stage where the performance takes place. There are as many types of theaters as there are types of performance. Theaters may be built specifically for a certain types of productions, they may serve for more general performance needs or they may be adapted or converted for use as a theater. They may range from open-air amphitheaters to ornate, cathedral-like structures to simple, undecorated rooms or black box theaters. A theatre used for opera performances is called an opera house. A theater is not required for performance (as in site-specific theatre, environmental theater or street theatre, street theater), this article is about s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Birmingham
Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West Midlands metropolitan county, and approximately 4.3 million in the wider metropolitan area. It is the largest UK metropolitan area outside of London. Birmingham is known as the second city of the United Kingdom. Located in the West Midlands region of England, approximately from London, Birmingham is considered to be the social, cultural, financial and commercial centre of the Midlands. Distinctively, Birmingham only has small rivers flowing through it, mainly the River Tame and its tributaries River Rea and River Cole – one of the closest main rivers is the Severn, approximately west of the city centre. Historically a market town in Warwickshire in the medieval period, Birmingham grew during the 18th century during the Midla ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe by the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south. The country covers five-eighths of the island of Great Britain, which lies in the North Atlantic, and includes over 100 smaller islands, such as the Isles of Scilly and the Isle of Wight. The area now called England was first inhabited by modern humans during the Upper Paleolithic period, but takes its name from the Angles, a Germanic tribe deriving its name from the Anglia peninsula, who settled during the 5th and 6th centuries. England became a unified state in the 10th century and has had a significant cultural and legal impact on the wider world since the Age of Discovery, which began during the 15th century. The English language, the Anglican Church, and Engli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bull Ring, Birmingham
The Bull Ring is a major shopping area in central Birmingham England, and has been an important feature of Birmingham since the Middle Ages, when its market was first held. Two shopping centres have been built in the area; in the 1960s, and then in 2003; the latter is styled as one word, Bullring. When combined with Grand Central (to which it is connected via a link bridge) it is the United Kingdom's largest city centre based shopping centre. The site is located on the edge of the sandstone city ridge which results in the steep gradient towards Digbeth. The slope drops approximately from New Street to St Martin's Church which is very visible near the church. The current shopping centre was the busiest in the United Kingdom in 2004 with 36.5 million visitors. It houses one of only four Selfridges department stores and previously the fourth largest Debenhams in the UK. Toponym The area was first known as Corn Cheaping in reference to the corn market on the site. The name ... [...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] |
John Ward (actor)
John Ward (24 June 1704 – 30 October 1773) was an English actor and theatre manager. The founder of the Warwickshire Company of Comedians – a Birmingham-based theatre company who toured throughout the West Midlands and into Wales during the mid to late eighteenth century – he was the first of the Kemble family theatrical dynasty, whose most notable member was his granddaughter Sarah Siddons. Ward was the first recorded performer of a Shakespearian play in Stratford-upon-Avon, and is also notable as the author of the two earliest surviving prompt books of Shakespeare's ''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 ...'', which reveal how the play was performed in eighteenth century England and also throw light on earlier practice. References Bibliography * * * ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Warwickshire Company Of Comedians
The Warwickshire Company of Comedians, also known as Mr Ward's Company of Comedians and after 1767 as Mr Kemble's Company of Comedians, was a theatre company established by John Ward in Birmingham, England in the 1740s, touring throughout the West Midlands region and surrounding counties over subsequent decades. Unusual in the 18th century as a provincial company producing performances to London tastes and standards, it is particularly notable as the origin of the Kemble family theatrical dynasty, which was to dominate the English stage in the late-18th and early 19th centuries. Sarah Siddons and John Philip Kemble in particular, who were Ward's grandchildren and whose careers began in the company, were the leading actress and actor of their time, and are still considered among the greatest performers in English theatrical history. History Foundation The Warwickshire Company of Comedians was founded by John Ward at Birmingham's Moor Street Theatre, which opened in 1740 and which W ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Yates (actor)
Richard Yates (c. 1706–1796) was an English comic actor, who worked at the Haymarket Theatre and Drury Lane among others, appearing in David Garrick's ''King Lear''. He also worked in theatre management, and set up the New Theatre in Birmingham in 1773. Both his first wife, Elizabeth Mary (maiden name unknown, died in 1753) and Mary Anne Graham (1728–1787 - married in 1756) were actresses. Life Born about 1706, he played in Henry Fielding's ''Pasquin'' at the Haymarket when it was first performed. In 1737–9, at Covent Garden, he was seen in a number of parts. On 4 September 1739 he appeared at Drury Lane as Jeremy in ''Love for Love'', and played other comic parts. At Goodman's Fields he appeared on 18 October 1740 as Antonio in '' Venice Preserved'', playing further parts during the season. For his benefit and that of Mrs. Elizabeth Yates, his first wife (about whom little is known) who played at this time small parts such as Emilia in ''The Winter's Tale'', and wa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
King Street Theatre
The King Street Theatre was the first purpose-built theatre to open in Birmingham, England. The town had had earlier theatres, but the Theatre in Smallbrook Street, whose origins dated back to 1715, and Theatre in New Street, which was in an existence a few years later, were both makeshift structures; and the more substantial Moor Street Theatre, which opened in 1740, was a conversion of an existing building. King Street was a much more ambitious undertaking, being based on the examples of the established London patent theatres. The theatre opened on 25 September 1751 with its first performance being a "Shakespeare Night and Concert of Vocal and Instrumental Musicians". Seats in a box cost 3 shillings, in the pit they cost 2 shillings, and in the gallery 1 shilling. Performances started at 7pm and, like its predecessor in Moor Street, the season lasted from early June until the end of September. King Street was built for the actor-manager Richard Yates – then at the peak of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Barnabas Gunn
Barnabas Gunn (c. 1680 – 6 February 1753) was an English organist and composer. Gunn's date and place of birth are unknown, but he was appointed organist of the newly built St Philip's Church (now St Philip's Cathedral) in Birmingham in 1715. He spent nine years as the organist of Gloucester Cathedral from 1730, returning to Birmingham as organist of both St Philip's and St Martin in the Bull Ring in 1740, remaining there until his death. Gunn's compositions included cantatas, songs, psalms and instrumental music for strings. In 1751 a thinly veiled attack appeared in an anonymous pamphlet (attributed to William Hayes) entitled "''The Art of Composing Music by a Method Entirely New ... Suited to the Meanest Capacity''", suggesting that Gunn composed using a ''Spruzzarino'' - a fictional device that squirted random dots of ink onto manuscript paper. Gunn responded in good humour by naming a 1752 publication of his music "''12 English Songs, by the newly invented method of compo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
.jpg "Click for more on -> Barnabas Gunn")