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The French Maid
''The French Maid'' is a musical comedy in two acts by Basil Hood, with music by Walter Slaughter, first produced at the Theatre Royal, Bath, England, under the management of Milton Bode on 4 April 1896. It then opened London's Terry's Theatre under the management of W. H. Griffiths beginning on 24 April 1897, but later transferred to the Vaudeville Theatre on 12 February 1898, running for a very successful total of 480 London performances. The piece starred Louie Pounds, Kate Cutler, Eric Lewis, Herbert Standing and Richard Green. There was a New York production in 1897. ''The Times'' gave the piece a very favourable review at its London opening, saying that "a fresher, brighter piece has not been seen for many a day.""Terry's Theatre", ''The Times'', 26 April 1897, p. 13 Roles and original London cast *Admiral Sir Hercules Hawser - H. O. Clarey *General Sir Drummond Fife - Windham Guise *Lt. Harry Fife - Richard Green *Paul Lecuire - Herbert Standing *Monsieur Camembert - ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Walter Slaughter
Walter Alfred Slaughter (17 February 1860 – 2 March 1908) was an English conductor and composer of musical comedy, comic opera and children's shows. He was engaged in the West End as a composer and musical director from 1883 to 1904. Life and career Youth and education Slaughter was born in Fitzroy Square, London.''The Musical Herald'', 1 December 1906, p. 359 He attended the City of London School, and sang in the choir of St. Andrew's Church, Wells Street under Joseph Barnby.Obituary, ''The Musical Herald'', 1 April 1908, p. 105 After leaving school, he worked in a wine merchant's office and then for the music publishers Metzler.'' The Strand Magazine'', 4 July 1892, p. 85 While there, he studied music under Alfred Cellier, Berthold Tours, and Georges Jacobi, the musical director of the Alhambra Theatre. He was also brought into frequent contact with Arthur Sullivan, who gave him much encouragement and friendly advice. Slaughter once asked Sullivan the best way to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Basil Hood
Basil Willett Charles Hood (5 April 1864 – 7 August 1917) was a British dramatist and lyricist, perhaps best known for writing the libretti of half a dozen Savoy Operas and for his English adaptations of operettas, including ''The Merry Widow''. He embarked on a career in the British Army, rising to the rank of captain, while writing theatrical pieces in his spare time. After some modest success, Hood and his collaborator, the composer Walter Slaughter, had a major hit with their long-running show, '' Gentleman Joe'', in 1895. Another long-running success was '' The French Maid'' (1896). Hood then resigned from the army to pursue his career as a librettist full-time. With Arthur Sullivan and then Edward German, he wrote several well-received pieces for the Savoy Theatre, including ''The Rose of Persia'' (1899), ''The Emerald Isle'' (1901), '' Merrie England'' (1902) and '' A Princess of Kensington'' (1903). After comic opera went out of fashion, Hood turned to Edwardian ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
West End Theatre
West End theatre is mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres in and near the West End of London.Christopher Innes, "West End" in ''The Cambridge Guide to Theatre'' (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 1194–1195, Along with New York City's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English-speaking world. Seeing a West End show is a common tourist activity in London. Famous screen actors, British and international alike, frequently appear on the London stage. There are a total of 39 theatres in the West End, with the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, opened in May 1663, the oldest theatre in London. The Savoy Theatre – built as a showcase for the popular series of comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan – was entirely lit by electricity in 1881. Opening in October 2022, @sohoplace is the first new West End theatre in 50 years. The Society of London Theatre (SOLT) announced ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edwardian Musical Comedy
Edwardian musical comedy was a form of British musical theatre that extended beyond the reign of King Edward VII in both directions, beginning in the early 1890s, when the Gilbert and Sullivan operas' dominance had ended, until the rise of the American musicals by Jerome Kern, Rodgers and Hart, George Gershwin and Cole Porter following the First World War. Between '' In Town'' in 1892 and ''The Maid of the Mountains'', premiering in 1917, this new style of musical theatre became dominant on the musical stage in Britain and the rest of the English-speaking world. The popularity of ''In Town'' and ''A Gaiety Girl'' (1893), led to an astonishing number of hits over the next three decades, the most successful of which included '' The Shop Girl'' (1894), '' The Geisha'' (1896), ''Florodora'' (1899), '' A Chinese Honeymoon'' (1901), '' The Earl and the Girl'' (1903), '' The Arcadians'' (1909), ''Our Miss Gibbs'' (1909), ''The Quaker Girl'' (1910), ''Betty'' (1914), ''Chu Chin Chow'' ( ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Theatre Royal, Bath
The Theatre Royal in Bath, England, was built in 1805. A Grade II* listed building, it has been described by the Theatres Trust as "One of the most important surviving examples of Georgian theatre architecture". It has a capacity for an audience of around 900. The Theatre Royal was built to replace the Old Orchard Street Theatre, funded by a Tontine and elaborately decorated. The architect was George Dance the Younger, with John Palmer carrying out much of the work. It opened with a performance of Shakespeare's Richard III and hosted performances by many leading actors of the time including Dorothea Jordan, William Macready and Edmund Kean. A major fire in 1862 destroyed the interior of the building and was quickly followed by a rebuilding programme by Charles J. Phipps, which included the construction of the current entrance. Further redecoration was undertaken in 1892; more extensive building work, including a new staircase and the installation of electric lighting, followed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Terry's Theatre
Terry's Theatre was a West End theatre in the Strand, in the City of Westminster, London. Built in 1887, it became a cinema in 1910 before being demolished in 1923. History The theatre was built in 1887, near Fountain's Court, on the site of a former public house, the Old Coal Hole, and was designed by Walter Emden for the publican, Charles Wilmot and a Dr Web. The theatre was built to accommodate 800, seated in pit and stalls, balcony and a dress circle. Fountain's Court was named for 'Fountain's Tavern', where the Fountain Club met – formed by Robert Walpole's political opponents. In 1826, Edmund Kean, the actor, founded a late supper club here, known as the 'Wolf Club' for carousing. It ran until the 1850s, introducing entertainments similar to Evans Music-and-Supper Rooms, in nearby Covent Garden. Edward Terry, as owner-manager, opened the theatre on 17 October 1887, with the farce ''The Churchwarden'', followed by ''The Woman Hater''. Terry had been the leading come ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vaudeville Theatre
The Vaudeville Theatre is a West End theatre on the Strand in the City of Westminster. As the name suggests, the theatre held mostly vaudeville shows and musical revues in its early days. It opened in 1870 and was rebuilt twice, although each new building retained elements of the previous structure. The current building opened in 1926, and the capacity is now 690 seats. Rare ''thunder drum'' and ''lightning sheets'', together with other early stage mechanisms, survive in the theatre. History Origins The theatre was designed by prolific architect C. J. Phipps, and decorated in a Romanesque style by George Gordon. It opened on 16 April 1870 with Andrew Halliday's comedy, ''For Love Or Money'' and a burlesque, ''Don Carlos or the Infante in Arms''. A notable innovation was the concealed footlights, which would shut off if the glass in front of them was broken. The owner, William Wybrow Robertson, had run a failing billiard hall on the site but saw more opportunity in theatre. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Louie Pounds
Louisa Emma Amelia "Louie" Pounds (12 February 1872 – 6 September 1970) was an English singer and actress, known for her performances in musical comedies and in mezzo-soprano roles with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company. Originally intended for a secretarial career, Pounds joined the chorus of a George Edwardes show in 1890 and quickly achieved advancement to leading roles in burlesque and musical comedy. In 1899, she joined the D'Oyly Carte company, where she created several roles. She was the youngest of five siblings who appeared with D'Oyly Carte. Her older brother Courtice was a principal tenor with the company in the 1880s and '90s, and her three sisters, Lily, Nancy and Rosy, also appeared with the company. After four years with D'Oyly Carte, Pounds resumed her career in musical comedies and non-musical plays, later switching from juvenile to character parts. Her career continued into the 1930s. Life and career Early days Pounds was born in Brompton, Kensington, Londo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kate Cutler
Kate Ellen Louisa Cutler (14 August 1864 – 14 May 1955) was an English singer and actress, known in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as an ''ingénue'' in musical comedies, and later as a character actress in comic and dramatic plays. She is possibly best known for walking out of the lead role in Noël Coward's ''The Vortex'' in 1924 shortly before opening night. Early years Cutler was born in Marylebone, London, daughter of Henry Cutler, a singer, and his wife Mary Ann, ''née'' Tims. Gänzl, Kurt"Cutler, Kate Ellen Louisa (1864–1955)" ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 2004, accessed 29 May 2009 She trained at a conservatoire in Watford, north of London, where one of her tutors described her as "an ideal Cherubino" in Mozart's ''The Marriage of Figaro''.''The Times'' obituary notice, 18 May 1955, p. 13 Her career, however, took her not into opera, but into operetta and then musical comedy. Musical stage In 1888, she appea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eric Lewis (actor)
Frederic Lewis Tuffley (23 October 1855 – 1 April 1935), better known by his stage name, Eric Lewis, was an English comedian, actor and singer. In a career spanning five decades, he starred in numerous comedies and in a few musical comedy hits, but he is probably best remembered today as the understudy to George Grossmith in the Gilbert & Sullivan comic operas of the 1880s who left the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company just in time to give Henry Lytton his big break. Lewis began performing in comic musical sketches in Brighton in the 1870s. He made his London performing debut in 1880 and joined the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company in 1882, where he understudied Grossmith until 1887. Lewis then performed in a number of very successful musical comedies and other comedies for the next decade but devoted himself to the non-musical comedy stage, performing mostly in contemporary comedies by Arthur Wing Pinero, George Bernard Shaw, J. M. Barrie and R. C. Carton until 1925. Biography Lewis was b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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