Theatre Royal, Covent Garden

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Employer Elizabeth Griffith
EG became a member of the London stage community when she joined the Covent Garden theatre company.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray, Brian Harrison, and Lawrence Goldman, editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
Family and Intimate relationships Adelaide Kemble
Actor Charles Kemble , father of Fanny and AK , took on the share of his brother John Philip Kemble in Covent Garden Theatre . Within a couple of years he took on the major...
Family and Intimate relationships Eliza Fenwick
EF arranged for her daughter Eliza Anne to give lessons in the Mocatta household in drawing and singing.
Paul, Lissa. Eliza Fenwick, Early Modern Feminist. University of Delaware Press, 2019.
119
Eliza Anne had already embarked on an acting career. She was performing in private theatres in...
Friends, Associates Mary Latter
ML formed a friendship and patronage relation with John Rich , licensee of Covent Garden , when he made a visit to Reading, on which occasion he lent her five guineas within half an hour...
Leisure and Society Anna Margaretta Larpent
The Paine book was Rights of Man. The kangaroo was the first ever brought to England. In the Polygraphic Exhibition Joseph Booth was displaying mechanical reproductions of oil paintings at Schomberg House, Pall Mall...
Leisure and Society Frances Trollope
While the siblings were neither connected to the upper ranks of society, nor dining with figures such as Beau Brummel , Frances soon exhibited the wit favoured by dandies and other members of the monied...
Literary responses Mary Latter
John Stede , the Covent Garden Theatre prompter, in his judgement later printed by the indignant author, said the play was of a preposterous Length, with many over-long speeches. It was a mere collection of...
Occupation David Garrick
Covent Garden imitated Drury Lane one month later.
Occupation Adelaide Kemble
AK made her English operatic debut at Covent Garden Theatre , London, again singing the title role in Bellini 's Norma.
Brockway, Wallace, and Herbert Weinstock. The World of Opera. Methuen, 1963.
555
Occupation Mary Robinson
MR , under a heavy cloak of anonymity, opened her last theatre season, at Covent Garden Theatre (playing in the mainpiece but apparently not in Frances Brooke 's Rosina, which followed it).
Highfill, Philip H., Kalman A. Burnim, and Edward A. Langhans. A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers and Other Stage Personnel in London, 1660-1800. Southern Illinois University Press, 1993.
13: 35
The London Stage 1660-1800. Southern Illinois University Press, 1968.
5: 582
Occupation Adelaide Kemble
AK sang the title role in Rossini 's Semiramide at Covent Garden Theatre in London.
Brockway, Wallace, and Herbert Weinstock. The World of Opera. Methuen, 1963.
606
Occupation Mary Robinson
MR made her last known London stage appearance, as Victoria in Hannah Cowley 's Bold Stroke for a Husband at Covent Garden .
Highfill, Philip H., Kalman A. Burnim, and Edward A. Langhans. A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers and Other Stage Personnel in London, 1660-1800. Southern Illinois University Press, 1993.
13: 35
Occupation Leah Sumbel
She received rave reviews for this first appearance, as Mrs Cadwallader in The Author (a burlesque portrayal of a woman writer). Later that summer she swashbuckled as Macheath in a famous transvestite production of Gay
Occupation David Garrick
Garrick proposed to charge full price, instead of half, for arrivals after the third act. Riots followed at Covent Garden (the other licensed theatre) the next month.
Performance of text Elizabeth Griffith
EG 's comedy The Double Mistake opened at Covent Garden Theatre : in contrast to her first effort it ran well, bringing her several benefits and a royal command performance.
Griffith, Elizabeth. “Introduction”. The Delicate Distress, edited by Cynthia Booth Ricciardi and Susan Staves, University Press of Kentucky, 1997, p. vii - xviii.
xxx
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray, Brian Harrison, and Lawrence Goldman, editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

Timeline

7 December 1732
John Rich opened a new theatre in Covent Garden , the Theatre Royal, and moved his farces and pantomimes there from the other Theatre Royal in Drury Lane .
1759
David Garrick finally barred non-paying servants from the gallery of Drury Lane Theatre in London.
26 November 1761
John Rich , holder of the licence for Covent Garden Theatre , died; his widow, Priscilla (who had been a performer before her marriage), took nominal control of the theatre.
14 October 1769
Garrick 's afterpieceThe Jubilee opened at Drury Lane , where it enjoyed the record run of the century: ninety performances in one season.
27 February 1776
A woman's artificial mountain of powdered and ornamented hair saved her from serious injury when she was hit by a liquor keg thrown from the upper gallery at Covent Garden Theatre .
23 September 1782
Covent Garden Theatre re-opened after a three-month reconstruction, enlargement, and renovation.
10 February 1786
For her benefit night at Covent Garden Theatre , Frances Abington chose to play the comic male part of the servant Scrub in Farquhar 's Beaux' Stratagem.
15 February 1791
The actress Harriet Pye Esten (daughter of novelist Anna Maria Bennett ) gave a highly successful recitation at Covent Garden Theatre of William Collins 's Ode on the Passions.
12 April 1799
Frances Abington , a popular actress who had been before the public for forty-four years (with a short-lived retirement in 1797-8), made her last appearance at Covent Garden Theatre .