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William Powell (English Actor)
William Powell (1735–1769) was an English actor. Early life He was born in Hereford, and educated at Hereford grammar school and at Christ's Hospital in London. Sir Robert Ladbrooke, a distiller and then president of Christ's Hospital, took him on as apprentice in his counting-house. Powell, however, was interested in amateur theatricals: Ladbrooke suppressed a club in Doctors' Commons of which Powell had become a member. For a while Powell remained in Ladbrooke's office. Charles Holland however, introduced him to David Garrick, who wanted to travel and sought a substitute actor. At Drury Lane Carefully coached by Garrick, Powell made his first appearance on stage at Drury Lane Theatre on 8 October 1763 as Philaster (in an adaptation of Beaumont and Fletcher's play, by George Colman the Elder). Supported also by James Lacy, Powell made a success. The ticket receipts were up to the best Garrick days. Garrick reappeared in the season of 1765–6, and took over from Powell ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Powell Dixon
William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of England in 1066,All Things William"Meaning & Origin of the Name"/ref> and remained so throughout the Middle Ages and into the modern era. It is sometimes abbreviated "Wm." Shortened familiar versions in English include Will, Wills, Willy, Willie, Bill, and Billy. A common Irish form is Liam. Scottish diminutives include Wull, Willie or Wullie (as in Oor Wullie or the play ''Douglas''). Female forms are Willa, Willemina, Wilma and Wilhelmina. Etymology William is related to the given name ''Wilhelm'' (cf. Proto-Germanic ᚹᛁᛚᛃᚨᚺᛖᛚᛗᚨᛉ, ''*Wiljahelmaz'' > German '' Wilhelm'' and Old Norse ᚢᛁᛚᛋᛅᚼᛅᛚᛘᛅᛋ, ''Vilhjálmr''). By regular sound changes, the native, inherited English form of th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Roman Father
''The Roman Father'' is a 1750 tragedy by the British writer William Whitehead. It is set during the reign of Tullus Hostilius, the legendary third King of Rome and his war with the neighbouring city of Alba Longa. The original Drury Lane cast featured David Garrick as Horatius, Spranger Barry as Publius Horatius, John Sowdon as Tullius Hostilius, Thomas King as Valerius, Sarah Ward as Valeria and Hannah Pritchard Hannah Pritchard (née Vaughan, 1711–1768) was an English actress who regularly played opposite David Garrick. She performed many significant Shakespearean roles and created on stage many important female roles by contemporary playwrights. Lif ... as Horatia. Incidental music was composed by William Boyce. It was met with "extravagant applause" and ran for twelve performances that season. It was revived frequently at both Drury Lane and Covent Garden.Bartlett & Bruce p.71 References Bibliography * Baines, Paul & Ferarro, Julian & Rogers, Pat. ''The Wiley-Bl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Clandestine Marriage
''The Clandestine Marriage'' is a comedy by George Colman the Elder and David Garrick, first performed in 1766 at Drury Lane. It is both a comedy of manners and a comedy of errors. The idea came from a series of pictures by William Hogarth entitled '' Marriage à-la-mode''. Plot summary The plot concerns a merchant, Mr Sterling, who wants to marry off his elder daughter to Sir John Melvil, who is actually in love with her younger sister, Fanny. Fanny, however, is in love with a humble clerk, Lovewell, whom she has secretly married. Her attempts to extricate herself from the arrangement with Melvil lead to her becoming the proposed bride of Melvil's elderly uncle, Lord Ogleby. When the truth comes out, Fanny and Lovewell are forgiven. Performances Play and painting On 12 October 1769 the play was performed as a Royal Command Performance with Sophia Baddeley, Robert Baddeley and Thomas King appearing. These three were recorded acting in an oil painting by Johan Zoffany. O ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Granville, 1st Baron Lansdowne
George Granville, 1st Baron Lansdowne PC (9 March 1666 – 29 January 1735), of Stowe, Cornwall, was an English Tory politician who sat in the English and British House of Commons from 1702 until 1712, when he was raised to the peerage as Baron Lansdown and sat in the House of Lords. He was Secretary at War during the Harley administration from 1710 to 1712. He was also a noted poet and made a name for himself with verses composed on the visit of Mary of Modena, then Duchess of York, while he was at Cambridge in 1677. He was also a playwright, following in the style of John Dryden. Origins Granville was the son of Bernard Granville, the fourth son of Sir Bevil Grenville (1596-1643) of Bideford in Devon and Stowe in the parish of Kilkhampton in Cornwall, a heroic Royalist commander in the Civil War. (The family changed the spelling of its name in 1661 from "Grenville" to "Granville", following the grant of the titles Baron Granville and Earl of Bath). His uncle was John Gra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
All For Love (play)
''All for Love; or, the World Well Lost'', is a 1677 heroic drama by John Dryden which is now his best-known and most performed play.It is dedicated to Earl of Danby. It is a tragedy written in blank verse and is an attempt on Dryden's part to reinvigorate serious drama. It is an acknowledged imitation of Shakespeare’s ''Antony and Cleopatra'', and focuses on the last hours of the lives of its hero and heroine. Background Although it ostensibly deals with the same topic as Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra, Dryden confines the action to Alexandria and focuses on the end of their doomed relationship. It first appeared in 1677, was revived in 1704 and performed 123 times between 1700 and 1800, becoming the preferred version of the story; Shakespeare's play did not reappear on the London stage until 1813. The original 1677 production by the King's Company starred Charles Hart as Marc Antony and Elizabeth Boutell as Cleopatra, with Michael Mohun as Ventidius and Katherine Co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mahomet (play)
''Mahomet'' (french: Le fanatisme, ou Mahomet le Prophète, literally ''Fanaticism, or Mahomet the Prophet'') is a five-act tragedy written in 1736 by French playwright and philosopher Voltaire. It received its debut performance in Lille on 25 April 1741. The play is a study of religious fanaticism and self-serving manipulation based on an episode in the traditional biography of Muhammad in which he orders the murder of his critics.Voltaire, ''Mahomet the Prophet or Fanaticism: A Tragedy in Five Acts'', trans. Robert L. Myers, ( New York: Frederick Ungar, 1964). Voltaire described the play as "written in opposition to the founder of a false and barbarous sect". Plot summary The story of ''Mahomet'' unfolds during Muhammad's post exile siege of Mecca in 629 AD, when the opposing forces are under a short term truce called to discuss the terms and course of the war. In the first act the audience is introduced to a fictional leader of the Meccans, Zopir, an ardent and defiant advo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tamerlane (play)
''Tamerlane'' is a 1701 history play by the English writer Nicholas Rowe. A tragedy, it portrays the life of the Timur, the fourteenth century conqueror and founder of the Timurid Empire. Rowe, a staunch Whig, used the historical story as an allegory for the life of William III who resembles his portrayal of Tamerlane while his opponent the Ottoman leader Bayezid I was equivalent to William's longstanding opponent Louis XIV of France. An earlier version of the story '' Tamburlaine'' was written by Christopher Marlowe during the Elizabethan era with a very different focus in the context of the English Renaissance. It was first performed in December 1701 at the Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre in London, one of the two patent theatres of the era, and was published the following year by Jacob Tonson. The original cast included Thomas Betterton as Tamerlane, John Verbruggen as Bajazet, Barton Booth as Axalla, William Powell as Moneses, George Pack as Stratocles, William Fieldhouse ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Elizabeth Griffith
Elizabeth Griffith (1727 – 5 January 1793) was an 18th-century Welsh-born dramatist, fiction writer, essayist and actress, who lived and worked in Ireland. Biography Elizabeth Griffith was born in Glamorgan, Wales, to Dublin theater manager Thomas Griffith (actor), Thomas Griffith and Jane Foxcroft Griffith on 11 October 1727.[2] “The family settled in Dublin, where they brought up Elizabeth to be a sociable child, cheerful and at ease among the theatrical community”. In addition to giving her access to the theatre-world, Thomas Griffith educated Elizabeth in French and English literature. Her father died in 1744, which led to economic hardship for the family. Her Dublin acting debut took place on 13 October 1749, when she played Juliet to a considerably older Romeo played by Thomas Sheridan (actor), Thomas Sheridan at the Smock Alley Theatre. Griffith specialized in tragic roles, such as Jane Shore in Nicholas Rowe (writer), Nicholas Rowe's ''The Tragedy of Jane Shore'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hérode Et Mariamne
''Hérode et Mariamne'' or ''Mariamne'' is a 1724 tragedy by Voltaire. Adapted from the writings of the historian Josephus, it is set in ancient Jerusalem, and portrays the tragic death of Mariamne at the hands of her jealous husband, Herod the Great, king of Judea, who suspects her of an intrigue with Varus, the Roman governor of Syria. The play premiered with Adrienne Lecouvreur as Mariamne, Baron as Hérode and Duclos as Salome, but it was withdrawn after just one performance when the audience gave it a critical reception. This failure encouraged Augustin Nadal to produce his ''Mariamne'' in February 1725, but that was also hostilely received, with calls for the return of Voltaire's version of the story. Nadal accused Voltaire of ensuring Nadal's play's failure by filling the audience with his supporters, and this led to a bitter war of words between them. Within months of Nadal's play, Voltaire managed to revise his play (responding to criticisms in the characterisation, he ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Fair Penitent
''The Fair Penitent'' is Nicholas Rowe's stage adaptation of the tragedy ''The Fatal Dowry,'' the Philip Massinger and Nathan Field collaboration first published in 1632. Rowe's adaptation, premiered onstage in 1702 and first published in 1703, was a great popular success through much of the 18th century, and was praised by critics as demanding as Samuel Johnson ("There is scarcely any work of any poet so interesting by the fable and so delightful in the language"). In making his adaptation, Rowe eliminated characters and simplified the action "to create a more focused play than the original." He pursued "neoclassical simplicity" but in the process sacrificed the "underlying moral principles" of the original. Rowe shifted the setting from Dijon to Genoa, and changed the main characters' names: Characters Rowe also accentuated the role of the female protagonist, making the play much more a vehicle for a female star performer, a "better acting piece" for a prominent actress. W ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aphra Behn
Aphra Behn (; bapt. 14 December 1640 – 16 April 1689) was an English playwright, poet, prose writer and translator from the Restoration era. As one of the first English women to earn her living by her writing, she broke cultural barriers and served as a literary role model for later generations of women authors. Rising from obscurity, she came to the notice of Charles II, who employed her as a spy in Antwerp. Upon her return to London and a probable brief stay in debtors' prison, she began writing for the stage. She belonged to a coterie of poets and famous libertines such as John Wilmot, Lord Rochester. Behn wrote under the pastoral pseudonym Astrea. During the turbulent political times of the Exclusion Crisis, she wrote an epilogue and prologue that brought her into legal trouble; she thereafter devoted most of her writing to prose genres and translations. A staunch supporter of the Stuart line, she declined an invitation from Bishop Burnet to write a welcoming ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rule A Wife And Have A Wife
''Rule a Wife and Have a Wife'' is a late Jacobean stage comedy written by John Fletcher. It was first performed in 1624 and first published in 1640. It is a comedy with intrigue that tells the story of two couples that get married with false pretenses. The play was licensed for performance by Sir Henry Herbert, the Master of the Revels, on 19 October 1624. It was performed by the King's Men, who performed it at Court twice in that season. The 1640 quarto was printed at Oxford by Leonard Lichfield, the printer to the University of Oxford. It was later reprinted in the second Beaumont and Fletcher folio of 1679. It was revived in the Restoration era in an adaptation, like many of Fletcher's plays; the revised version was printed in 1697 and repeatedly thereafter, and proved to be among the dramatist's most popular works. External evidence, including Herbert's entry in his records and the 1640 quarto, assigns the play to Fletcher alone. The play's internal evidence of styl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
