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The Way To Keep Him
''The Way to Keep Him'' is a 1760 comedy play by the Irish writer Arthur Murphy. Originally three-acts in length, it premiered at the Drury Lane Theatre in a double bill with Murphy's ''The Desert Island''. Actor-manager David Garrick appeared in both productions.Gilman p.310-11 A great success, the following year it was extended to five acts, with music composed by Thomas Arne to accompany it. It had many revivals well into the nineteenth century. The original 1760 Drury Lane cast included Garrick as Lovemore, John Palmer as Sir Brilliant Fashion, Thomas King as William, Maria Macklin as Widow Bellmour, Mary Ann Yates as Mrs Lovemore, Mary Bradshaw as Mignionet and Kitty Clive Catherine Clive (née Raftor; 5 November 1711 – 6 December 1785) Catherine ‘Kitty’ Clive (1711-1785, active 1728-1769) was a first songster and star comedienne of British playhouse entertainment. Clive led and created new forms of English ... as Muslin. References Bibliography * Baines, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arthur Murphy (writer)
Arthur Murphy (27 December 1727 – 18 June 1805), also known by the pseudonym Charles Ranger, was an Irish writer. Biography Murphy was born at Cloonyquin, County Roscommon, Ireland, the son of Richard Murphy and Jane French. He studied at the Jesuit-run College of Saint-Omer, France, and was a gifted student of the Latin and Greek classics. He worked as an actor in the theatre, became a barrister, a journalist and finally a (not very original) playwright. He edited '' Gray's Inn Journal'' between 1752 and 1754. As Henry Thrale's oldest and dearest friend, he introduced Samuel Johnson to the Thrales in January 1765. He was appointed Commissioner of Bankruptcy in 1803. Murphy is known for his translations of Tacitus in 1753. They were still published in 1922. He wrote also three biographies: his 1792 '' An Essay on the Life and Genius of Samuel Johnson'', his 1762 '' Fielding's Works'' and his 1801 ''Life of David Garrick''. Murphy is thought to have coined the legal ter ... [...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] |
Comedy Play
Comedy is a genre of dramatic performance having a light or humorous tone that depicts amusing incidents and in which the characters ultimately triumph over adversity. For ancient Greeks and Romans, a comedy was a stage-play with a happy ending. In the Middle Ages, the term expanded to include narrative poems with happy endings and a lighter tone. In this sense Dante used the term in the title of his poem, the ''Divine Comedy'' (Italian: ''Divina Commedia''). The phenomena connected with laughter and that which provokes it have been carefully investigated by psychologists. The predominating characteristics are incongruity or contrast in the object, and shock or emotional seizure on the part of the subject. It has also been held that the feeling of superiority is an essential factor: thus Thomas Hobbes speaks of laughter as a "sudden glory." Modern investigators have paid much attention to the origin both of laughter and of smiling, as well as the development of the "play insti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Double Bill
The double feature is a motion picture industry phenomenon in which theatres would exhibit two films for the price of one, supplanting an earlier format in which one feature film and various short subject reels would be shown. Opera use Opera houses staged two operas together for the sake of providing long performance for the audience. This was related to one-act or two-act short operas that were otherwise commercially hard to stage alone. A prominent example is the double-bill of ''Pagliacci'' with ''Cavalleria rusticana'' first staged on 22 December 1893 by the Met. The two operas have since been frequently performed as a double-bill, a pairing referred to in the operatic world colloquially as "Cav and Pag". Origin and format The double feature originated in the later 1930s. Though the dominant presentation model, consisting of all or some of the following, continued well into the 1940s: * One or more live acts * An animated cartoon short subject * One or more live-action come ... [...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] |
Thomas Arne
Thomas Augustine Arne (; 12 March 17105 March 1778) was an English composer. He is best known for his patriotic song "Rule, Britannia!" and the song "A-Hunting We Will Go", the latter composed for a 1777 production of ''The Beggar's Opera'', which has since become popular as a folk song and a nursery rhyme. Arne was a leading British theatre composer of the 18th century, working at the West End's Drury Lane and Covent Garden. He wrote many operatic entertainments for the London theatres and pleasure gardens, as well as concertos, sinfonias, and sonatas. Early life Arne was born on March 12th, 1710 in Covent Garden and baptised at St Paul's, Covent Garden. Arne's father and grandfather were both upholsterers and both held office in the Worshipful Company of Upholders of the City of London. His grandfather fell on hard times and died in the debtors' prison of Marshalsea. His father earned enough money not only to rent 31 King Street, a large house in Covent Garden, but also t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Palmer (actor)
John Palmer (c. 1742–1798) was an actor on the English stage in the eighteenth century. There was also another John Palmer (1728–1768) who was known as Gentleman Palmer. Richard Brinsley Sheridan nicknamed him Plausible Jack. Birth and youth He was born in the parish of St Luke's, Old Street, London, about 1742, was son of a private soldier. In 1759 the father served under the Marquis of Granby, and subsequently, on the marquis's recommendation, became a bill-sticker and doorkeeper at Drury Lane Theatre in London. When about eighteen John recited the parts of George Barnwell and Mercutio to David Garrick, but Garrick found no promise in him, and joined his father in urging him to enter the army. Garrick even got a small military appointment for him; but Palmer refused to follow his counsel, and entered the shop of a print-seller on Ludgate Hill. On 20 May 1762, for the benefit of his father and three others, he made his first appearance on any stage, playing Buck in the ''En ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas King (actor)
Thomas King (1730–1805) was an English actor, known also as a theatre manager and dramatist. Early life Born 20 August 1730, in the parish of St George's, Hanover Square, London, where his father was a tradesman, he was educated at a grammar school in Yorkshire, and then at Westminster School. Articled to a London solicitor, he was taken to a dramatic school, and in 1747, with Edward Shuter, he ran away, and joined a travelling company at Tunbridge. He then had a period acting in barns, in the course of which (June 1748) he played in a booth at Windsor, directed by Richard Yates. London actor King was seen by David Garrick, who, on the recommendation of Yates, engaged him for Drury Lane. His first part was the Herald in ''King Lear''. On 19 October 1748, when Philip Massinger's '' New Way to Pay Old Debts'' was given for the first time at Drury Lane, he played Allworth. He was in the same season the original Murza in Samuel Johnson's ''Irene'', and played a part in ''The Hen- ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maria Macklin
Maria Macklin (1733 – 1781) was a British actress. Her parents were both leading Irish born actors. Life During the 1730s her father Charles Macklin and her mother Ann Grace Purvor were lovers. They were both Irish born actors appearing on the London and Dublin stages. Her mother assumed the name of Macklin although it is unlikely they ever married. She was born in 1733 in Portsmouth. By 1738 she and her parents were living in Covent Garden and in 1739 her mother stopped appearing as "Mrs Grace" and began appearing as "Mrs Macklin" as if they had been married. Her father made his name when he recreated the character of Shylock on 14 February 1741 using a natural form of acting and ignoring the comedic character that had become the tradition. She took acting lessons from her father who had created a new way of acting when he appeared as Shylock. She made her debut on the stage in 1742 taking the role of the Duke of York in Richard III which was a role traditionally used to in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mary Ann Yates
Mary Ann Yates (1728–1787) was an English tragic actress. The daughter of William Graham, a ship's steward and his wife, Mary, she married Richard Yates (c. 1706-1796), a well-known comedian of the time. In 1754, aged 25, she appeared at Drury Lane as Marcia in Samuel Crisp's ''Virginia''. David Garrick played the part of Virginius. Yates was gradually entrusted with all the leading parts and succeeded the then famous actress Mrs Cibber as the leading tragedienne of the English stage. She was in turn succeeded and eclipsed by the famous Sarah Siddons. There were benefit performances for Yates in 1797 at The Haymarket which included an appearance by Harriett Litchfield.K. A. Crouch, ‘Litchfield , Harriett (1777–1854)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 200accessed 1 Feb 2015/ref> Selected roles * Marcia in ''Virginia'' by Samuel Crisp (1754) * Sandane in ''Agis'' by John Home (1758) * Mandane in '' The Orphan of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mary Bradshaw
Mary Bradshaw (died 1780) was a British stage actress at Theatre Royal, Drury Lane for 37 years. She appeared with David Garrick and she was included in a painting by Johann Zoffany. Life Bradshaw comes to notice playing young women. She joined the Drury Lane company in 1743/1744 and would remain there for 37 years. In 1760 she was the first person to play the nurse in ''Polly Honeycombe'' and this became "her part" appearing in that role when it was put on. By this point she had moved successfully to take the role of older women like the nurse. file:Johan Joseph Zoffany - David Garrick and Mary Bradshaw in David Garrick's "The Farmer's Return" - Google Art Project.jpg, left, David Garrick and Mary Bradshaw in David Garrick's "The Farmer's Return from London, The Farmer's Return" by Johan Joseph Zoffany She appeared with David Garrick in the ''Farmer's Wife'' and she a Garrick appeared in Zoffany's painting. Samuel De Wilde reproduced a portrait of Bradshaw by extracting ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kitty Clive
Catherine Clive (née Raftor; 5 November 1711 – 6 December 1785) Catherine ‘Kitty’ Clive (1711-1785, active 1728-1769) was a first songster and star comedienne of British playhouse entertainment. Clive led and created new forms of English musical theatre. She was celebrated both in high-style parts – singing, for instance, Handel’s music for her in ''Messiah'', ''Samson'', and ''The Way of the World'' – and in low-style ballad opera roles. Her likeness was printed and traded in unprecedented volume. She championed women’s rights throughout her career. An image crisis in the late 1740s forced Clive to quit serious song and instead lampoon herself on stage. Though this self-ridicule won Clive public favour back, and she reigned as first comedienne until her retirement in 1769, the strategy’s very success caused her musical legacy to be slighted and forgotten. A definitive biography of Clive by Berta Joncus appeared in 2019. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
