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Topsy Sinden
Harriet Augusta Sinden (1877–1950), known professionally as Topsy Sinden, was an English dancer, actress and singer. She was best known for her performances in Edwardian musical comedy and pantomime, both in London and on tour. Sinden was an accomplished tap dancer and skirt dancer. Life and career Sinden was born and raised in London. According to the 1901 census, her parents were Augustus Sinden, a musician, and his wife Harriet. Her brother was the actor and dancer Bert Sinden (1879–1911).These dates are based upon London census records. Her nickname was "Topsy" from an early age. She was a distant cousin of the actor Sir Donald Sinden. Early career Sinden began to perform as a small child in entertainments at St. James's Hall and made her professional debut at age six, in 1884, as a little dancer in a fairy play at the Royalty Theatre, followed shortly by a pantomime of ''Dick Whittington'' at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane and by engagements at other West End theatres. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Edwardes
George Joseph Edwardes (né Edwards; 8 October 1855 – 4 October 1915) was an English theatre manager and producer of Irish ancestry who brought a new era in musical theatre to the British stage and beyond. Edwardes started out in theatre management, soon working at a number of West End theatres. By the age of 20, he was managing theatres for Richard D'Oyly Carte. In 1885, Edwardes became a manager at the Gaiety Theatre with John Hollingshead, who soon retired. For the next three decades, Edwardes ruled a theatrical empire including the Gaiety, Daly's Theatre, the Adelphi Theatre and others, and sent touring companies around Britain and abroad. In the early 1890s, Edwardes recognised the changing tastes of musical theatre audiences and led the movement away from burlesque and comic opera to Edwardian musical comedy. Life and career Edwardes was born at Great Grimsby, Lincolnshire, England. He was the eldest of four sons and three daughters of James Edwards, comptroller of c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
San Toy
''San Toy, or The Emperor's Own'' is a "Chinese" musical comedy in two acts, first performed at Daly's Theatre, London, on 21 October 1899, and ran for 768 performances (edging out the same composer's '' The Geisha'' as the second longest run for any musical up to that time). The book was written by Edward Morton, and the musical score was written by Sidney Jones with lyrics by Harry Greenbank and Adrian Ross. Additional songs were written by Lionel Monckton. The cast included Marie Tempest, Scott Russell, Huntley Wright and Rutland Barrington. The piece enjoyed international success. In America, ''San Toy'' opened at Daly's Theatre on Broadway on 10 October 1900. It was revived at the same theatre in 1901, 1902 and 1905, playing for a total of more than 200 performances in these productions. The piece was regularly performed by amateur theatre groups, particularly in Britain, from 1910 through the 1930s, but it has been produced only rarely since then. Some of the la ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lottie Venne
Lottie Venne (28 May 1852 – 16 July 1928) was a British comedian, actress and singer of the Victorian and Edwardian eras, who enjoyed a theatre career spanning five decades. Venne began her stage career in musical burlesque before moving into farce and comedy. She appeared in several works by each of F. C. Burnand and W. S. Gilbert and was often in plays with Charles Hawtrey later in her career. Early life and career Born as Hannah Charlotte Venne, her first professional appearance came in 1867 as Miss Charbonnel in ''A Dream in Venice'' at the Gallery of Illustration in London, followed by two years touring in the provinces. For part of this time, she joined Captain Disney Roebuck's touring company, where she met her future husband, Walter H. Fisher. In London, in 1870, Venne played Susan Piper in ''A Bull in a China Shop'', a comedy by Charles Mathews at the Haymarket Theatre. At the same theatre, she appeared as Jemima in ''Rural Felicity'' by John Baldwin Buckstone."M ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Avenue Theatre
The Playhouse Theatre is a West End theatre in the City of Westminster, located in Northumberland Avenue, near Trafalgar Square, central London. The Theatre was built by F. H. Fowler and Hill with a seating capacity of 1,200. It was rebuilt in 1907 and still retains its original substage machinery. As of November 2021, the theatre has been refurbished and renamed as the Kit Kat Club and is home to a revival of the musical ''Cabaret'' with a seating capacity of 550. History Early years Built by Sefton Henry Parry as the Royal Avenue Theatre, it opened on 11 March 1882 with 1200 seats. The first production at the theatre was Jacques Offenbach's '' Madame Favart''. In its early seasons, the theatre hosted comic operas, burlesques and farces for several years. For much of this time, the low comedian Arthur Roberts, a popular star of the music halls, starred at the theatre. By the 1890s, the theatre was presenting drama, and in 1894 Annie Horniman, the tea heiress, anonymous ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Original Shaftesbury Theatre
The Shaftesbury Theatre was a theatre in central London, England, between 1888 and 1941. It was built by John Lancaster for his wife, Ellen Wallis, a well-known Shakespearean actress. The theatre was designed by C. J. Phipps and built by Messrs. Patman and Fotheringham at a cost of £20,000 and opened with a production of ''As You Like It'' on 20 October 1888. The theatre had a stage of 28' 6" square. The capacity was 1,196. It was located on the south side of Shaftesbury Avenue, just east of Gerrard Place. History The theatre's first big hit was '' The Belle of New York'' produced by the prominent Broadway producer, George W. Lederer, which opened on 12 April 1898 and ran for an extremely successful 697 performances. In 1908–09 H. B. Irving became the lessee and manager of the theatre and presented a successful season of plays. Robert Courtneidge was lessee for most of the early years of the 20th century and produced mostly comic operas and Edwardian musical comedies, inclu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Yashmak
''The Yashmak, A Story of the East'' is a musical play, with a libretto by Cecil Raleigh and Seymour Hicks, adapted from an Armenian operetta, ''Leblébidji Horhor'', which had been a success in 1896 in Constantinople. The music was composed by Napoleon Lambelet (1864-1932), and additional songs were composed by Leslie Stuart and others. ''The Yashmak'' was first produced at the original Shaftesbury Theatre in London from 31 March 1897 to 31 July 1897, for a run of 121 performances. Scott Russell, a former leading D'Oyly Carte Opera Company tenor, left the Savoy Theatre to star in the production with Aileen D'Orme, who was later replaced by Marguerite Cornille, a music hall star. Kitty Loftus played Dora Selwyn, while Topsy Sinden was principal dancer in the piece.''The Era'', 4 June 1898, p. 10 A yashmak A yashmak, yashmac or yasmak (from Turkish ''yaşmak'', "a veil") is a Turkish and Turkmen type of veil or niqāb worn by women to cover their faces in public. Toda ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Royal Opera House
The Royal Opera House (ROH) is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply Covent Garden, after a previous use of the site. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The Royal Ballet, and the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House. The first theatre on the site, the Theatre Royal (1732), served primarily as a playhouse for the first hundred years of its history. In 1734, the first ballet was presented. A year later, the first season of operas, by George Frideric Handel, began. Many of his operas and oratorios were specifically written for Covent Garden and had their premieres there. The current building is the third theatre on the site, following disastrous fires in 1808 and 1856 to previous buildings. The façade, foyer, and auditorium date from 1858, but almost every other element of the present complex dates from an extensive reconstruction in the 1990s. The main auditorium seats 2,256 people, mak ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Grand Opera
Grand opera is a genre of 19th-century opera generally in four or five acts, characterized by large-scale casts and orchestras, and (in their original productions) lavish and spectacular design and stage effects, normally with plots based on or around dramatic historic events. The term is particularly applied (sometimes specifically used in its French language equivalent grand opéra, ) to certain productions of the Paris Opéra from the late 1820s to around 1850; 'grand opéra' has sometimes been used to denote the Paris Opéra itself. The term 'grand opera' is also used in a broader application in respect of contemporary or later works of similar monumental proportions from France, Germany, Italy, and other countries. It may also be used colloquially in an imprecise sense to refer to 'serious opera without spoken dialogue'. Origins Paris at the turn of the 19th century drew in many composers, both French and foreign, and especially those of opera. Several Italians working d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Shop Girl
''The Shop Girl'' was a musical comedy in two acts (described by the author as a musical farce) written by H. J. W. Dam, with Lyrics by Dam and Adrian Ross and music by Ivan Caryll, and additional numbers by Lionel Monckton and Ross. It premiered at the Gaiety Theatre in London in 1894 and ran for an extremely successful 546 performances. Its cast included Seymour Hicks, George Grossmith, Jr., Arthur Williams, Edmund Payne, and Ellaline Terriss. It soon played in New York and was successfully revived in London in 1920. Background The success of ''A Gaiety Girl'' in 1893 confirmed to Edwardes that the lighter "musical comedy" was the right path for musical theatre. ''The Shop Girl'' heralded a new era in musical comedy, and the critics were amazed that the author had provided such a coherent story, as there had been hardly any story at all in burlesque. Over a dozen copies followed at the Gaiety Theatre (including ''My Girl'', ''The Circus Girl'', and ''A Runaway Girl'') ove ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Daly's Theatre
Daly's Theatre was a theatre in the City of Westminster. It was located at 2 Cranbourn Street, just off Leicester Square. It opened on 27 June 1893, and was demolished in 1937. The theatre was built for and named after the American impresario Augustin Daly, but he failed to make a success of it, and between 1895 and 1915 the British producer George Edwardes ran the house, where he presented a series of long-running musical comedies, including ''The Geisha'' (1896), and English adaptations of operettas, including ''The Merry Widow'' (1907). After Edwardes died in 1915 Daly's had one more great hit, ''The Maid of the Mountains'' (1917), which ran for 1,352 productions, but after that the fortunes of the theatre declined; Noël Coward's play ''Sirocco'' (1927) was a notable failure. By the mid-1930s Leicester Square had become better known for cinemas. Daly's was sold to Warner Brothers who demolished it and erected a large cinema on the site. History Background and early yea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Gaiety Girl
''A Gaiety Girl'' is an English Edwardian musical comedy, musical comedy in two acts by a team of musical comedy neophytes: Owen Hall (book, on an outline by James T. Tanner), Harry Greenbank (lyrics) and Sidney Jones (composer), Sidney Jones (music). It opened at Prince of Wales Theatre in London, produced by George Edwardes, on 14 October 1893 (later transferring to Daly's Theatre) and ran for 413 performances. The show starred C. Hayden Coffin, Louie Pounds, Decima Moore, Eric Lewis (actor), Eric Lewis, W. Louis Bradfield, and later Rutland Barrington, Scott Russell (tenor), Scott Russell, Huntley Wright, Marie Studholme and George Grossmith, Jr. Topsy Sinden and later Letty Lind danced in the piece. Choreography was by Willie Warde. Percy Anderson (designer), Percy Anderson designed the Japanese costumes for the musical, while the non-Japanese costumes were supplied by leading fashion houses. Blanche Massey was one of the Gaiety Girls in the piece. It also had a successfu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
