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The Cutter Of Coleman Street
''The Cutter of Coleman Street'' is a comedy play by the English writer Abraham Cowley. It premiered at the Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre on 16 December 1661, performed by the Duke's Company. Cowley had originally written it in 1658 during the English Commonwealth era. The title refers to Coleman Street in the City of London. The Royalist Cowley inserted lines mocking the recent republican government of England, including Thomas Harrison who had been executed for regicide the previous year. Although it was released during the Restoration period, along with '' The Committee'' its debt to earlier traditions mean that it not a full Restoration comedy in the style that would flourish after George Etherege's ''The Comical Revenge'' in 1664. The original cast included Thomas Betterton as Colonel Jolly, Henry Harris as Young Trueman, Thomas Lovell as Old Trueman, Cave Underhill as Cutter, Samuel Sandford as Captain Worme, James Nokes as Puny, Mary Betterton as Aurelia, Anne Gibbs A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Abraham Cowley
Abraham Cowley (; 161828 July 1667) was an English poet and essayist born in the City of London late in 1618. He was one of the leading English poets of the 17th century, with 14 printings of his ''Works'' published between 1668 and 1721. Early life and career Cowley's father, a wealthy citizen, who died shortly before his birth, was a stationer. His mother was wholly given to works of devotion, but it happened that there lay in her parlour a copy of ''The Faerie Queene''. This became the favourite reading of her son, and he had read it twice before he was sent to school. As early as 1628, that is, in his tenth year, he composed his ''Tragicall Historie of Piramus and Thisbe'', an epic romance written in a six-line stanza, a style of his own invention. It is not too much to say that this work is the most astonishing feat of imaginative precocity on record; it is marked by no great faults of immaturity, and possesses constructive merits of a very high order. Two years later, Cowl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1661 Plays
Events January–March * January 6 – The Fifth Monarchists, led by Thomas Venner, unsuccessfully attempt to seize control of London; George Monck's Coldstream Guards, regiment defeats them. * January 29 – The Rokeby baronets, a British nobility title is created. * January 30 – The body of Oliver Cromwell is exhumed and subjected to a posthumous execution in London, along with those of John Bradshaw (judge), John Bradshaw and Henry Ireton. * February 5 – The Shunzhi Emperor of the Chinese Qing Dynasty dies, and is succeeded by his 7-year-old son the Kangxi Emperor. * February 7 – Shah Shuja (Mughal prince), Shah Shuja, who was deprived of his claim to the throne of the Mughal Empire by his younger brother Aurangzeb, then fled to Burma, is killed by Indian troops in an attack on his residence at Arakan. * February 14 – George Monck’s regiment becomes ''The Lord General's Regiment of Foot Guards'' in England (which later becomes th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jane Long (actress)
Jane Long was an English stage actor of the seventeenth century. She was recruited into the Duke's Company after the theatres were repopened following the Restoration and became a noted comedienne, at a time when the Restoration comedy genre was flourishing.Howe p.75-76 Selected roles * Laughing Jane in ''The Cutter of Coleman Street'' by Abraham Cowley (1661) * Flora in ''The Adventures of Five Hours'' by Samuel Tuke (1663) * Diacelia in '' The Slighted Maid'' by Robert Stapylton (1663) * Brianella in '' The Stepmother'' by Robert Stapylton (1663) * Widow in ''The Comical Revenge'' by George Etheredge (1664) * Leucippe in ''The Rivals'' by William Davenant (1664) * Zarma in '' Mustapha'' by Roger Boyle (1665) * Mandanda in ''The Women's Conquest'' by Edward Howard (1670) * Mrs Brittle in '' The Amorous Widow'' by Thomas Betterton (1670) * Crispina in ''The Six Days' Adventure'' by Edward Howard (1671) * Fickle in ''The Town Shifts'' by Edward Revet (1671) * Paulina in ''Jul ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anne Gibbs
Anne Shadwell was an English stage actor of the seventeenth century. She was one of the first English actresses to appear on stage following the Restoration She was one of six actors recruited in 1660 by William Davenant for the new Duke's Company, acting under her maiden name Anne Gibbs. Sometime between 1663 and 1667 she married the playwright Thomas Shadwell with whom she had four children. While some sources have her acting late into the century, it may be she effectively retired with the formation of the United Company in 1682. Her appearances had decreased since 1672. Following her husband's death in 1692 she was left the bulk of his estate. She had an investment in the Drury Lane Theatre in 1709, when she joined a petition to Queen Anne by the manager Christopher Rich, but nothing is known about her after this point.Highfill, Burnim & Langhans p.275-277 Selected roles * Lucia in ''The Cutter of Coleman Street'' by Abraham Cowley (1661) * Decio in '' The Slighted Maid'' by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mary Betterton
Mary Saunderson (1637–1712), later known as Mary Saunderson Betterton after her marriage to Thomas Betterton, was an actress and singer in England during the 1660s and 1690s. She is considered one of the first English actresses. Stage career Her most notable accomplishments are her being the first female actress to portray several of Shakespeare's woman characters on the professional stage. She was the first to portray Juliet in ''Romeo and Juliet'', Lady Macbeth in ''Macbeth'', and other female roles in '' The Tempest'', ''Hamlet'' (as Ophelia), ''Measure for Measure'', ''Much Ado About Nothing'', ''Twelfth Night'', ''King Lear''. In Shakespeare's day, female roles were played by teenage boys, as women and young girls were not allowed on the stage. By the 1660s, however, the laws in England had changed, allowing females to act professionally. Mary's connections through her husband, Thomas, who was also a famous actor, allowed her to play several significant roles. Saunderso ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Nokes
James Nokes (Noke, Noak, Noakes) (died c.1692) was an English actor, whose laughter-arousing genius was attested by Cibber and other contemporaries. Life Nokes was one of the male actors who played female roles in the newly reopened playhouses shortly after the Restoration of Charles II. This practice didn't last long, as Thomas Killigrew's King's Company put the first English actress on the stage on December 1660, and from then on they appeared more and more frequently, until in 1662 Charles II ordered that only women should play female roles. There was a brief period in late 1660 and early 1661 when both men and women were playing female roles. On 29 January 1661, the diarist Samuel Pepys went to the Duke’s playhouse, where "after great patience and little expectation, from so poor beginning, I saw three acts of ‘The Mayd in ye Mill’ acted to my great content." It was Nokes who was playing the title female role of the Mayd. Sir Martin Mar-all, Sir Davy Dunce and Sir Cre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Samuel Sandford
Samuel Sandford ( fl. 1661–1699) was an English character actor, known for his roles as villains. Career He joined William D'Avenant's company at Lincoln's Inn Fields about a year after its formation, and was, on 16 December 1661, the original Worm in Abraham Cowley's ''Cutter of Coleman Street''. On 1 March 1662 he was Sampson in ''Romeo and Juliet'', and on 20 October Maligni (the villain) in Thomas Porter's ''The Villain''. Early in January 1663 he was Ernesto in Samuel Tuke's ''Adventures of Five Hours'', and on 28 May Vindex in Robert Stapylton's ''Slighted Maid''. During the same season he was Sylvanus in the ''Stepmother'', also by Stapleton, and in 1664 was Wheadle in George Etherege's ''Comical Revenge, or Love in a Tub'', and Provost in ''The Rivals'', D'Avenant's alteration of ''The Two Noble Kinsmen''. After the break of performances on account of the Great Plague, Sandford on 26 March 1668, sang with Harris, as two ballad singers, the epilogue to D'Avenant's ''Man ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cave Underhill
Cave Underhill (1634–1710?) was an English actor in comedy roles. Underhill entertained three generations of London theatre-goers. For over 40 years, as a member of the Duke's Company, Underhill played the first Gravedigger in ''Hamlet''. He was also successful in playing Gregory in ''Romeo and Juliet'', the clown in ''Twelfth Night'', and Trinculo in '' The Tempest''. Early life The son of Nicholas Underhill, a clothworker, he was born in St. Andrew's parish, Holborn, London, on 17 March 1634, and was admitted to Merchant Taylors' School in January 1645. He became first a member of the acting company which was gathered by John Rhodes. around Thomas Betterton. He was then recruited for Sir William D'Avenant and the Duke of York's company at the theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields. In 1663 he was fined in an assault case, with Betterton and James Noke. Stage career The first character to which Underhill's name appears is Sir Morglay Thwack in D'Avenant's comedy ''The Wits'', re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Henry Harris (actor)
Henry Harris (c. 1634 – 1704) was an English stage actor and theatre manager. Initially a painter he was a founder member of the new Duke's Company in 1660 following the Restoration which established itself at the old Salisbury Court Theatre before moving to the new Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre shortly afterwards. Due to his background Harris may have been a set designer and painter during his early years with the company. However, by 1661 he was acting, and his first recorded role was in William Davenant's ''The Siege of Rhodes'' that summer. He quickly established himself as the second actor in the troupe after Thomas Betterton. In 1663 he was briefly arrested, likely due to an attempt to change allegiance to the rival King's Company which was illegal at the time. The dispute seemed to be over pay, and he remained with the Duke's Company. In these years he also mentored an emerging actor Joseph Williams who would go on to have a long stage career of his own. In 1664 Harris ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Betterton
Thomas Patrick Betterton (August 1635 – 28 April 1710), the leading male actor and theatre manager during Restoration England, son of an under-cook to King Charles I, was born in London. Apprentice and actor Betterton was born in August 1635 in Tothill Street, Westminster.''The National Cyclopaedia of Useful Knowledge'', Vol.III, London, Charles Knight, 1847, p.273 He was apprenticed to John Holden, Sir William Davenant's publisher, and possibly later to a bookseller named John Rhodes, who had been wardrobe-keeper at the Blackfriars Theatre. In 1659, Rhodes obtained a license to set up a company of players at the Cockpit Theatre in Drury Lane; and on the reopening of this theatre in 1660, Betterton made his first appearance on the stage. Betterton's talents at once brought him into prominence, and he was given leading parts. On the opening of the new theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields in 1661, Davenant, the patentee of the Duke's Company, engaged Betterton and all Rhodes's co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Comical Revenge
''The Comical Revenge; Or, Love In A Tub'' is a 1664 comedy play by the English writer George Etherege. First staged by the Duke's Company, it premiered at the Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre. It is one of the earliest Restoration Comedies. The original cast included Thomas Betterton as Lord Beauford, Henry Harris as Sir Frederick Frollick, William Smith as Colonel Bruce, Henry Norris as Lovis, James Nokes as Sir Nicholas Cully, Cave Underhill as Palmer, Samuel Sandford as Wheadle, Mary Betterton as Graciana, Moll Davis Mary "Moll" Davis (c. 1648 – 1708), also spelt Davies or Davys, was a courtesan and mistress of King Charles II of England. She was an actress and entertainer before and during her role as royal mistress. Early life Mary Davis was born in ... as Aurelia and Jane Long as Widow.Van Lennep p.76 References Bibliography * Fisk, Deborah Payne & Canfield, J. Douglas ''Cultural Readings of Restoration and Eighteenth-Century English Theater''. University of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
