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Theatre Royal, Aldershot
The Theatre Royal was a theatre in Aldershot in Hampshire which opened in 1891 and was demolished in 1959. The teenage Charlie Chaplin appeared there in 1904 and the actor James Mason is believed to have made his stage début at the theatre in 1931.Sweeney, Kevin''James Mason: A Bio-bibliography''Greenwood Press (1999) pg 5 ''Google Books'' Early years Located on the corner of Gordon Road and Birchett Road in Aldershot, the Theatre Royal replaced the Apollo Music Hall which had been on the corner of Union Street and Grosvenor Road in Aldershot from 1856 until it was destroyed by a fire in February 1889 during a performance of ''Monte Cristo & Co''. Originally a music hall, the Theatre Royal was regularly visited by touring companies of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company. From 1887 this theatre was run by Clarence Sounes. The new theatre was designed by the theatre architects Bertie Crewe and W. G. R. Sprague. The singer and comedian Arthur Lloyd appeared at the theatre in a tour of h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Theatre Royal Aldershot 1945
Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actor, actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music, and dance. Elements of art, such as painted scenery and stagecraft such as lighting are used to enhance the physicality, presence and immediacy of the experience. The specific place of the performance is also named by the word "theatre" as derived from the Ancient Greek θέατρον (théatron, "a place for viewing"), itself from θεάομαι (theáomai, "to see", "to watch", "to observe"). Modern Western theatre comes, in large measure, from the theatre of ancient Greece, from which it borrows technical terminology, classification into genres, and many of its theme (arts), themes, stock characters, and plot elements. Theatre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sherlock Holmes (play)
''Sherlock Holmes'' is a four-act play by William Gillette and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, based on Conan Doyle's character Sherlock Holmes. After three previews it premiered on Broadway November 6, 1899, at the Garrick Theatre in New York City. Background Recognizing the success of his character Sherlock Holmes, Conan Doyle decided to pen a play based on him. American theatrical producer Charles Frohman approached Conan Doyle and requested the rights to Holmes. While nothing came of their association at that time, it did inspire Conan Doyle to pen a five-act play featuring Holmes and Professor Moriarty. Upon reading the play, Frohman felt that it was unfit for production and instead persuaded Conan Doyle that actor William Gillette would be an ideal Holmes and would also be the perfect person to rewrite the play. Gillette, a successful playwright, donned a deerstalker and cape to visit Conan Doyle and request permission not only to perform the part but to rewrite it himself. Creati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Curtain Raiser
A curtain raiser is a short performance, stage act, show, actor or performer that opens a show for the main attraction. The term is derived from the act of raising the stage curtain. The first person on stage has "raised the curtain". The fashion in the late Victorian era and Edwardian era was to present long evenings in the theatre, and so full-length pieces were often presented together with, usually shorter, companion pieces. Each full-length work was normally accompanied by one or two short companion pieces. If the piece began the performance, it was called a curtain raiser. One that followed the full-length piece was called an afterpiece. W. J. MacQueen-Pope commented, concerning the curtain raisers: :This was a one-act play, seen only by the early comers. It would play to empty boxes, half-empty upper circle, to a gradually filling stalls and dress circle, but to an attentive, grateful and appreciative pit and gallery. Often these plays were little gems. They deserve ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cavalleria Rusticana
''Cavalleria rusticana'' (; Italian for "rustic chivalry") is an opera in one act by Pietro Mascagni to an Italian libretto by Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti and Guido Menasci, adapted from an 1880 short story of the same name and subsequent play by Giovanni Verga. Considered one of the classic ''verismo'' operas, it premiered on 17 May 1890 at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome. Since 1893, it has often been performed in a so-called ''Cav/Pag'' double-bill with ''Pagliacci'' by Ruggero Leoncavallo. Composition history In July 1888 the Milanese music publisher Edoardo Sonzogno announced a competition open to all young Italian composers who had not yet had an opera performed on stage. They were invited to submit a one-act opera which would be judged by a jury of five prominent Italian critics and composers. The best three would be staged in Rome at Sonzogno's expense. Mascagni heard about the competition only two months before the closing date and asked his friend Giovanni Targioni-Tozze ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Don Giovanni
''Don Giovanni'' (; K. 527; Vienna (1788) title: , literally ''The Rake Punished, or Don Giovanni'') is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to an Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. Its subject is a centuries-old Spanish legend about a libertine as told by playwright Tirso de Molina in his 1630 play '' El burlador de Sevilla y convidado de piedra''. It is a ''dramma giocoso'' blending comedy, melodrama and supernatural elements (although the composer entered it into his catalogue simply as ''opera buffa''). It was premiered by the Prague Italian opera at the National Theater (of Bohemia), now called the Estates Theatre, on 29 October 1787. ''Don Giovanni'' is regarded as one of the greatest operas of all time and has proved a fruitful subject for commentary in its own right; critic Fiona Maddocks has described it as one of Mozart's "trio of masterpieces with librettos by Da Ponte". Composition and premiere The opera was commissioned after the succes ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Il Trovatore
''Il trovatore'' ('The Troubadour') is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto largely written by Salvadore Cammarano, based on the play ''El trovador'' (1836) by Antonio García Gutiérrez. It was García Gutiérrez's most successful play, one which Verdi scholar Julian Budden describes as "a high flown, sprawling melodrama flamboyantly defiant of the Aristotelian unities, packed with all manner of fantastic and bizarre incident." The premiere took place at the Teatro Apollo in Rome on 19 January 1853, where it "began a victorious march throughout the operatic world," a success due to Verdi's work over the previous three years. It began with his January 1850 approach to Cammarano with the idea of ''Il trovatore''. There followed, slowly and with interruptions, the preparation of the libretto, first by Cammarano until his death in mid-1852 and then with the young librettist Leone Emanuele Bardare, which gave the composer the opportunity to propose signifi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Bohemian Girl
''The Bohemian Girl'' is an Irish Romantic opera composed by Michael William Balfe with a libretto by Alfred Bunn. The plot is loosely based on a Miguel de Cervantes' tale, ''La Gitanilla''. The best-known aria from the piece is "I Dreamt I Dwelt in Marble Halls" in which the main character, Arline, describes her vague memories of her childhood. It has been recorded by many artists, most famously by Dame Joan Sutherland, and also by the Norwegian soprano Sissel Kyrkjebø and Irish singer Enya. Performance history The opera was first produced in London at the Drury Lane Theatre on 27 November 1843. The production ran for more than 100 nights and enjoyed many revivals worldwide including: New York City (25 November 1844), Dublin (1844) and Philadelphia (1844).Loewenberg, columns 832-833. Loewenberg's listing of a production in Madrid on 9 April 1845 in an Italian translation by R. Paderni is evidently incorrect. No such performance can be traced, and D'Erme (see Sources) demonst ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Samuel Franklin Cody
Samuel Franklin Cowdery (later known as Samuel Franklin Cody; 6 March 1867 – 7 August 1913, born Davenport, Iowa, USA)) was a Wild West showman and early pioneer of manned flight. He is most famous for his work on the large kites known as ''Cody War-Kites'', that were used by the British before World War I as a smaller alternative to balloons for artillery spotting. He was also the first man to fly an aeroplane built in Britain, on 16 October 1908. A flamboyant showman, he was often confused with Buffalo Bill Cody, whose surname he took when young. Early life Cody's early life is difficult to separate from his own stories told later in life, but he was born Samuel Franklin Cowdery in 1867, in Davenport, Iowa, where he attended school until the age of 12. Not much is known about his life at this time, although he claimed that during his youth he had lived the typical life of a cowboy. He learned how to ride and train horses, shoot and use a lasso. He later claimed to have ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fred Karno
Frederick John Westcott (26 March 1866 – 17 September 1941), best known by his stage name Fred Karno, was an English theatre impresario of the British music hall. As a comedian of slapstick he is credited with popularising the custard-pie-in-the-face gag. During the 1890s, in order to circumvent stage censorship, Karno developed a form of sketch comedy without dialogue. Cheeky authority-defying playlets such as ''Jail Birds'' (1895) in which prisoners play tricks on warders and ''Early Birds'' (1899), showing the poverty and realities for the poor of London's East End, can be seen as precursors of movie silent comedy. Many of his comics subsequently worked in film and used Karno material throughout their work. Film producer Hal Roach stated: "Fred Karno is not only a genius, he is the man who originated slapstick comedy. We in Hollywood owe much to him." Among the music hall comedians who worked for him were Charlie Chaplin and his understudy, Arthur Stanley Jefferson, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ellaline Terriss
Mary Ellaline Terriss, Lady Hicks (born Mary Ellaline Lewin, 13 April 1871 – 16 June 1971), known professionally as Ellaline Terriss, was a popular British actress and singer, best known for her performances in Edwardian musical comedies. She met and married the actor-producer Seymour Hicks in 1893, and the two collaborated on many projects for the stage and screen. The daughter of the actor William Terriss, Ellaline made her London stage debut at the age of 16 in ''Cupid's Messenger'' at London's Haymarket Theatre. Impressed with her performance, the producer Charles Wyndham gave her a three-year contract, under which she first played Madge in ''Why Women Weep''. In 1892 Terriss starred in ''Faithful James'' (by B. C. Stephenson) and the following year she starred in the title role of ''Cinderella'', produced by Henry Irving. She was featured in W. S. Gilbert's ''His Excellency'' in 1894, followed the next year by a starring role in the George Edwardes production of the m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Seymour Hicks
Sir Edward Seymour Hicks (30 January 1871 – 6 April 1949), better known as Seymour Hicks, was a British actor, music hall performer, playwright, actor-manager and producer. He became known, early in his career, for writing, starring in and producing Edwardian musical comedy, often together with his famous wife, Ellaline Terriss. His most famous acting role was that of Ebenezer Scrooge in Charles Dickens's '' A Christmas Carol''. Making his stage début at the age of nine and performing professionally by sixteen, Hicks joined a theatrical company and toured America before starring in ''Under the Clock'' in 1893, the first musical revue ever staged in London. Following this, he starred in a revival of ''Little Jack Sheppard'' at the Gaiety Theatre, London which brought him to the attention of impresario George Edwardes. Edwardes cast Hicks in his next show, ''The Shop Girl'', in 1894. Its success led to his participation in two more of Edwardes's hit "girl" musicals, ''The Cir ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Robey
Sir George Edward Wade, Commander of the Order of the British Empire, CBE (20 September 1869 – 29 November 1954),James Harding (music writer), Harding, James"Robey, George" ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, accessed 10 May 2014. known professionally as George Robey, was an English comedian, singer and actor in musical theatre, who became known as one of the greatest music hall performers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. As a comedian, he mixed everyday situations and observations with comic absurdity. Apart from his music hall acts, he was a popular Christmas pantomime performer in the English provinces, where he excelled in the pantomime dame, dame roles. He scored notable successes in musical revues during and after the First World War, particularly with the song "If You Were the Only Girl (In the World)", which he performed with Violet Loraine in the revue ''The Bing Boys Are Here'' (1916). One of his best-known original ch ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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