Theatre Royal, Drury Lane

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
death David Garrick
Drury Lane Theatre was dark this night as a mark of respect for DG , actor-manager and playwright, who had died that morning at 5 Adelphi Terrace, London.
The London Stage 1660-1800. Southern Illinois University Press, 1968.
5: 192
Education Elizabeth Grant
While the family resided in London, theatre-going provided another much-welcomed form of education and entertainment. EG once attended a production of The Caravan, featuring John Kemble , in which Carlo, the famous Newfoundland...
Employer Elizabeth Cooper
As a means of earning money she went on the stage. In January 1734 she appeared at Drury Lane , and in April that year she organised her own benefit at Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre
Family and Intimate relationships Delarivier Manley
At the time her first play was produced DM was said, perhaps not accurately, to be having an affair with Skipwith , co-manager of Drury Lane .
Manley, Delarivier. “Editorial Materials”. A Woman of No Character: An Autobiography of Mrs Manley, edited by Fidelis Morgan, Faber, 1986, p. various pages.
87-8
Family and Intimate relationships Ann Hatton
Actress Sarah Siddons had her first triumph at Drury Lane , four months after the birth of her fifth and last child.
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.
14: 8
Family and Intimate relationships Caroline Norton
Tom Sheridan , CN 's father, son of the playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan , bore the same name as his famous eighteenth-century grandfather, the actor, and great-grandfather, the clergyman and schoolmaster. He had been an...
Family and Intimate relationships Sophia Lee
SL 's father, John Lee , was a quarrelsome and impecunious actor. The year of her birth he acted at Richmond and Covent Garden , with an interim desertion to Drury Lane , where, however...
Family and Intimate relationships Charlotte Charke
Charlotte's father, Colley Cibber , was an actor, manager of Drury Lane Theatre , and Poet Laureate: he had become an unfaithful husband before Charlotte was born, and he was at the peak of his...
Friends, Associates Mary Matilda Betham
As well as meeting at Llangollen with Lady Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby (who later talked with high praise of her),
Betham, Ernest, editor. A House of Letters. Jarrold and Sons, 1905.
69, 70
MMB acquired a wide acquaintance in London. She became a close friend...
Intertextuality and Influence Charlotte Lennox
Seventeen years after the brief, inglorious appearance of The Sister, Sir John Burgoyne raided it for his successful comedy The Heiress, which opened at Drury Lane on 14 January 1786. Twenty years after...
Intertextuality and Influence Aphra Behn
There opened at Drury Lane Theatre a comedy entitled Love in Many Masks, by John Philip Kemble , which was adapted from AB 's The Rover.
The London Stage 1660-1800. Southern Illinois University Press, 1968.
5: 1233
Critical Review. W. Simpkin and R. Marshall.
69 (1790): 593
Material Conditions of Writing Elizabeth Boyd
The British Library copy is 161 g. 56. An advertisement says that William Rufus Chetwood (prompter at Drury Lane ) had hoped to get it staged, but it was delayed by the author's ill-health. Again...
Occupation Charlotte Charke
Her career opened well. Next year she took the demanding role of Alicia in Nicholas Rowe 's Jane Shore. She became stock-reader or general understudy in the Drury Lane Company , in which capacity she played Cleopatra.
Baruth, Philip E. “Who Is Charlotte Charke?”. Introducing Charlotte Charke: Actress, Author, Enigma, edited by Philip E. Baruth, University of Illinois Press, 1998, pp. 9 - 62.
18
Occupation Mary Robinson
MR made her stage debut at Drury Lane as Juliet to William Brereton 's Romeo; she was an instantaneous success.
Robinson, Mary. “Introduction”. Mary Robinson: Selected Poems, edited by Judith Pascoe, Broadview, 2000, pp. 19 -64.
26, 63
Robinson, Mary. Perdita: The Memoirs of Mary Robinson. Levy, Moses JosephEditor , Peter Owen, 1994.
87-9
Occupation Sarah Gardner
Sarah Cheney (later SG ) made her first appearance on the London stage, before her marriage, as Congreve 's Miss Prue in Love for Love: A Comedy at Drury Lane .
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.
5: 463

Timeline

7 December 1666
This was probably the first day a public theatre opened in London after a seventeen-month closure owing to the plague.
2 March 1667
Dryden 's Secret Love, or the Maiden Queen had its first performance at Drury Lane Theatre , with Nell Gwyn in the cast and Samuel Pepys , Charles II , and the future James II in the audience.
26 March 1674
The King's Company opened at its new Drury Lane Theatre , in Drury Lane, still under the management of Thomas Killigrew .
9 September 1676
Charles Hart , Michael Mohun , Edward Kynaston , and William Cartwright were appointed by the Lord Chamberlain to manage Drury Lane Theatre .
28 September 1677
During another difficult season at Drury Lane Theatre , the manager extracted an agreement from the actors that they would not perform for any other company.
12 December 1677
John Dryden 's tragedyAll for Love; or, The World Well Lost (a blank-verse re-writing of Shakespeare 's Antony and Cleopatra) received its first known (perhaps not its first) performance at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane .
16 November 1682
The recently-formed United Company gave its first stage performance at Drury Lane Theatre .
Mid-January 1694
John Dryden 's last play, the tragedyLove Triumphant, was performed at Drury Lane ; it was printed the same year.
Autumn1694
Rebellion headed by the performers Thomas Betterton , Elizabeth Barry , and Anne Bracegirdle put an end to the United Company , which had been formed in 1682 with the merger of the two London theatres.
21 November 1696
Sir John Vanbrugh 's comedyThe Relapse: or Virtue in Danger opened at Drury Lane .
8 April 1706
George Farquhar 's comedyThe Recruiting Officer was first performed at Drury Lane .
13 January 1708
The two licensed London theatre companies struck an agreement which would put an end to some aspects of recent cut-throat competition.
6 June 1709
Drury Lane Theatre (under Christopher Rich ) was closed by the Lord Chamberlain for deducting too much in house charges from the full receipts.
23 November 1709
Aaron Hill started as manager at Drury Lane Theatre and pursued a policy of rivalry with Thomas Betterton 's company at the Queen's Theatre, Haymarket .
1715
The theatre censorship system which had been in place since the 1690s died out when Drury Lane under Richard Steele ceased sending playscripts to Killigrew .