Actor Management
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Actor Management
An actor-manager is a leading actor who sets up their own permanent theatrical company and manages the business, sometimes taking over a theatre to perform select plays in which they usually star. It is a method of theatrical production used consistently since the 16th century, particularly common in 19th-century Britain and the United States. History The first actor-managers, such as Robert Browne, appeared in the late 16th century, to be followed by another Robert Browne (no relation) and George Jolly in the 17th century. In the 18th century, actor-managers such as Colley Cibber and David Garrick gained prominence. The system of actor-management generally produced high standards of performance, as demonstrated by such 19th-century actors as William Macready, Charles Wyndham, Henry Irving, Frank Benson and Herbert Beerbohm Tree, by husband-wife teams such as Squire Bancroft and Effie Bancroft, Frank Wyatt and Violet Melnotte, William Hunter Kendal and Madge Robertson Ke ...
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Henry Irving Portrait
Henry may refer to: People *Henry (given name) *Henry (surname) * Henry Lau, Canadian singer and musician who performs under the mononym Henry Royalty * Portuguese royalty ** King-Cardinal Henry, King of Portugal ** Henry, Count of Portugal, Henry of Burgundy, Count of Portugal (father of Portugal's first king) ** Prince Henry the Navigator, Infante of Portugal ** Infante Henrique, Duke of Coimbra (born 1949), the sixth in line to Portuguese throne * King of Germany **Henry the Fowler (876–936), first king of Germany * King of Scots (in name, at least) ** Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley (1545/6–1567), consort of Mary, queen of Scots ** Henry Benedict Stuart, the 'Cardinal Duke of York', brother of Bonnie Prince Charlie, who was hailed by Jacobites as Henry IX * Four kings of Castile: ** Henry I of Castile ** Henry II of Castile **Henry III of Castile **Henry IV of Castile * Five kings of France, spelt ''Henri'' in Modern French since the Renaissance to italianize the name a ...
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Frank Wyatt
Frank Wyatt (7 November 1852 – 5 October 1926) was an English actor, singer, theatre manager and playwright. After beginning his career as an illustrator and painter, in 1877 Wyatt began a stage career in comedy, Victorian burlesque, pantomime and operetta. In 1884 he had success in a Shakespeare role in Henry Irving's company, and in 1885 he created the role of Ravennes in the comic opera ''Erminie'', which went on to become an international sensation. In this production he met Violet Melnotte, who also appeared in ''Erminie'' and who managed the theatre where it premiered; they married in 1886. In his more than two-decade career on stage Wyatt is best remembered for his roles with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company from 1889 to 1891, and in particular for creating the role of the Duke of Plaza-Toro in Gilbert and Sullivan's hit comic opera ''The Gondoliers''. Wyatt continued to perform in comic operas and comedies until about 1900. From the 1890s Wyatt and his wife owned and ...
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Lydia Thompson
Lydia Thompson (born Eliza Thompson; 19 February 1838 – 17 November 1908), was an English dancer, comedian, actor and theatrical producer. From 1852, as a teenager, she danced and performed in pantomimes, in the UK and then in Europe and soon became a leading dancer and actor in burlesques on the London stage. In 1868, she introduced Victorian burlesque to America with her troupe, the "British Blondes", to great acclaim and notoriety. Her career began to decline in the 1890s, but she continued to perform into the early years of the 20th century. Early years Thompson was born in Brydges Street, Covent Garden, London to Eliza (''née'' Cooper) and Philip Thompson (c. 1801–1842), owner of the Sheridan Knowles, a public house. Thompson was the second of three surviving children, including actress Clara Bracy. Gänzl, Kurt. "Lydia Thompson", ''Encyclopaedia of the Musical Theatre'', Blackwell/Schirmer (1994) Her father died in 1842, and her mother remarried Edward Hodges. By th ...
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Laura Keene
Laura Keene (20 July 1826 – 4 November 1873) was a British stage actress and theatre manager. In her twenty-year career, she became known as the first powerful female manager in New York. She is most famous for being the lead actress in the play ''Our American Cousin'', which was attended by President Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theater in Washington on the evening of his assassination. Early life Keene was born Mary Frances Moss in Winchester, England. She was the fourth and final child of Tomas and Jane Moss (''née'' King). Her aunt was British actress Elizabeth Yates. At the age of 18, she married British Army officer Henry Wellington Taylor (some sources identify Taylor as "John"). Taylor was reportedly the nephew and godson of Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington. The couple had two daughters, Emma (born 1846) and Clara Marie Stella (born 1849). After being discharged from the army, Taylor opened his own tavern. Around 1850, Taylor was arrested, though the natur ...
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Emily Soldene
Emily Soldene (30 September 1838 – 8 April 1912) was an English singer, actress, director, theatre manager, novelist and journalist of the late Victorian era and the Edwardian period. She was one of the most famous singers of comic opera in the late nineteenth century, as well as an important director of theatre companies and later a celebrated gossip columnist. Life and career Soldene was born in Clerkenwell, London. Her mother was Priscilla Swain Fuller (1812–1900), and although she was apparently the product of a bigamous marriage, she was raised as the daughter of Edward Fuller Solden (1805–1873).Gänzl, Kurt"Soldene, Emily (1838?–1912)" ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 2004, accessed 12 September 2008. In 1859 she married law clerk John Powell (1834?–1881) and gave birth to her first child before she began to study singing in 1861 with William Howard Glover. Early career and peak years Soldene made her first public appearanc ...
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Gertrude Kingston
Gertrude Kingston (24 September 1862 – 7 November 1937) (born Gertrude Angela Kohnstamm) was an actress, an English actor-manager and artist. Early life Kingston was born in Islington in London, the daughter of merchant Heiman Kohnstamm and his wife, Teresina (née Friedmann), who were Jewish. She was the sister of legal author and county court judge Edwin Max Konstam (1870–1956), born as Edwin Max Kohnstamm. Kingston was privately educated and travelled extensively with her mother and governess. She studied painting in Berlin and Paris and later published three illustrated books. Her first theatrical experience was as a child, performing amateur impersonations of famous actors of the day such as Henry Irving and Sarah Bernhardt. Aged fifteen W. S. Gilbert selected her to play the lead in an amateur production of ''Broken Hearts''. On her marriage in 1889 to Captain George Silver (1858/9–1899) of the East Surrey Regiment, Kingston decided to become a professional actress ...
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Sarah Thorne
Sarah Thorne (10 May 1836 – 27 February 1899) was a British actress and actor-manager, actress-manager of the 19th century who managed the Theatre Royal at Margate for many years. She ran a school for acting there which is widely regarded as Britain's first formal drama school. The Sarah Thorne Theatre Club in Broadstairs is named in her memory. Early life Sarah Thorne was born in London in 1836, the eldest of ten children born to Richard Samuel Thorne (1813–1875), an actor and Actor-manager, theatre manager who managed the Surrey Theatre, and his wife, Sarah née Rogers (1812–1896). Two of her younger brothers were Thomas Thorne, one of the founding managers of London's Vaudeville Theatre, and George Thorne (singer), George Thorne, the singer and actor, best known for his performances in the comic baritone roles of the Savoy Operas with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company. Sarah Thorne made her stage debut aged 12 on 26 December 1848 in a pantomime produced by her father at ...
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Sarah Bernhardt
Sarah Bernhardt (; born Henriette-Rosine Bernard; 22 or 23 October 1844 – 26 March 1923) was a French stage actress who starred in some of the most popular French plays of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, including '' La Dame Aux Camelias'' by Alexandre Dumas ''fils''; ''Ruy Blas'' by Victor Hugo, ''Fédora'' and ''La Tosca'' by Victorien Sardou, and '' L'Aiglon'' by Edmond Rostand. She also played male roles, including Shakespeare's Hamlet. Rostand called her "the queen of the pose and the princess of the gesture", while Hugo praised her "golden voice". She made several theatrical tours around the world, and was one of the first prominent actresses to make sound recordings and to act in motion pictures. She is also linked with the success of artist Alphonse Mucha, whose work she helped to publicize. Mucha would become one of the most sought-after artists of this period for his Art Nouveau style. Biography Early life Henriette-Rosine Bernard was born at 5 rue de L ...
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Evelyn Millard
Evelyn Mary Millard (18 September 1869 – 9 March 1941) was an English Shakespearean actress, actor-manager and "stage beauty" of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries perhaps best known for creating the role of Cecily Cardew in the 1895 premiere of Oscar Wilde's play ''The Importance of Being Earnest''. Early life and career Millard was born in Kensington in London in 1869, one of three daughters of John Millard (1838 –1900), a teacher of elocution at the Royal Academy of Music and the Royal College of Music, and his wife, Emily (née Cooke) (1848–1902). Evelyn Millard studied at the Female School of Art in Bloomsbury.Gillan, DonEvelyn Millard 'Stage Beauty' website, accessed 3 April 2011/ref> She made her first stage appearance in 1891 in a "walk-on" role in Henry Arthur Jones' play ''The Dancing Girl'' at the Haymarket Theatre in London. She trained as an actress under Sarah Thorne at her School of Acting based at the Theatre Royal in Margate, where she lea ...
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Selina Dolaro
Selina Simmons Belasco Dolaro (20 August 1849 – 23 January 1889) was an English singer, actress, theatre manager and writer of the late Victorian era. During her career in operetta and other forms of musical theatre, she managed several of her own opera companies and directed the Royalty Theatre in London. She is best remembered as a producer of the original production of ''Trial by Jury'' by Gilbert and Sullivan. Dolaro sang the title role in the opera ''Carmen'' in the first English language version of that opera with the Carl Rosa Opera Company. She also wrote plays and novels. Early life Dolaro was born in London to Jewish parents, Benjamin Simmons, a violinist and conductor, and Julia (''née'' Lewis).Siegel, Michele"Selina Dolaro" ''Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia'', 1 March 2009, Jewish Women's Archive, accessed 12 January 2010 She received early music lessons from her father's colleagues, and she attended the Paris Conservatory as a teenager ...
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Lucia Elizabeth Vestris
Lucia Elizabeth Vestris (''née'' Elizabetta Lucia Bartolozzi; 3 March 1797 – 8 August 1856) was an English actress and a contralto opera singer, appearing in works by, among others, Mozart and Rossini. While popular in her time, she was more notable as a theatre producer and manager. After accumulating a fortune from her performances, she leased the Olympic Theatre in London and produced a series of burlesques and extravaganzas, especially popular works by James Planché, for which the house became famous. She also produced his work at other theatres she managed. Early life and education She was born in London in 1797, the first of two daughters of German pianist Theresa Jansen Bartolozzi and art dealer Gaetano Stefano Bartolozzi. He was a musician and son of the immigrant Francesco Bartolozzi, a noted artist and engraver, appointed as Royal Engraver to the king.
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German Reed Entertainments
The German Reed Entertainments were founded in 1855 and operated by Thomas German Reed (1817–1888) together with his wife, Priscilla Horton, Priscilla German Reed (née Horton) (1818–1895). At a time when the theatre in London was seen as a disreputable place, the German Reed family provided family-friendly entertainments for forty years, showing that respectable theatre could be popular. The entertainments were held at the intimate Royal Gallery of Illustration, Lower Regent Street, and later at St. George's Hall (London), St. George's Hall, Langham Place, in London. Thomas and Priscilla German Reed usually appeared in them, together with a small group of players. They engaged talented newcomers, such as Frederic Clay, W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Law (playwright), Arthur Law, as well as established writers such as F. C. Burnand, to create many of the entertainments. Thomas German Reed composed the music for many of the entertainments himself. The German Reed theatri ...
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