Event Comment: [1st piece in place of THE FLITCH OF BACON, advertised on playbill of 25 July.] 3rd piece [1st time; CO 2, by Samuel James Arnold]: The new musick, with a Scottish Medley Overture, by Dr Arnold. New Scenery by Rooker. New Dresses and Decorations. Morning Chronicle, 28 Aug. 1794: This Day is published AULD ROBIN GRAY (1s)

Event Comment: Mainpiece [1st time; T 5, by Joseph Berington, altered from the same, by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing. MS: Larpent MS 1041; not published; synopsis of plot in Morning Herald, 30 Oct. It has hitherto been assumed that this play was altered by Benjamin Thompson, but "This Tragedy was translated from the German by the Rev. Jos. Berrington [sic]" (Kemble Mem.). Dr. Berington's authorship is also referred to in London Chronicle, 30 Oct. 1794. Thompson's translation was published by Vernor and Hood in 1800. Prologue by Richard Cumberland. Epilogue by George Colman, ynger (London Chronicle, 29 Oct.)]: The Dresses, Scenes and Decorations are entirely new. The Scenery in the four first Acts is the work of Signor Barzago and of his Brother; and in the fifth of Greenwood, by whom also a new Frontispiece is designed and executed. [Miss Miller, who had appeared the previous season as a chorus singer, is identified in European Magazine, Nov. 1794, p. 363.] The Doors to be opened at 5:15. To begin at 6:15 [see 20 Apr. 1795]. Powell: Emilia Galotti rehearsed at 10. The New Frontispiece and Stage doors were exhibited for the first Time this Evening. Receipts: #317 19s. 6d. (270.8.6; 46.5.0; 1.6.0)

Event Comment: Afterpiece [1st time; BALL. P 2, by James Byrn. Synopsis of action, somewhat enlarged from that on playbill (H. Macleish, 1794)]: The Music partly new by Shield, and partly selected from Haydn, Mazzinghi, Gluck, Baumgarten, Gretry, Martin? y Soler, Dezede, Eley. With a new Overture for a Double Orchestra composed by Reeve. The Scenery, Machinery, Dresses and Decorations are entirely New. The Scenery painted by Hodgins, Walmsley, Phillips and Lupino Jun., assisted by Hollogan, Byrn, &c. The Dresses chiefly designed by Lupino Sen., and executed under the direction of Dick. "This ballet [is] the most magnificent exhibited on the English stage for many years" (Universal Magazine, Nov. 1794, p. 378). Receipts: #136 13s. 6d. (123.12.6; 13.1.0)

Event Comment: A new Comic Opera; the music entirely by Paisiello [performed at the Pantheon, 14 May 1791, as La Molinarella]. Bianchi and Martini [i.e. Martin y Soler] are both engaged as composers to this Theatre, and will each preside at the harpsichord the three first nights of every new Opera of their composition. Pit 10s. 6d. Gallery 5s. No Money to be returned. The Doors to be opened at 6:30. To begin at 7:30 [see 30 Apr. 1795]. The Nobility are intreated to give directions to their servants to set down and take up at the Theatre, with horses' heads towards Pall Mall. On account of abuses practised in the names of the Subscribers it is become necessary to require the production of the Subscription Tickets both at the doors and the Boxes, At the Chair-door in Market-lane Subscribers only will be admitted. "The Pantomime is too much in the gaudy stile of Italy, and even in this respect the ballet-master is not well seconded by the machinist; the decorations were unfinished, and the scenes clumsily shifted...We were sorry to find that the new and superb room, which the proprietor was encouraged to build, and Which was opened in its unfinished state last year, is now entirely shut up, through the cabal of some few of the subscribers who refuse a miserable guinea for its illumination. The inconvenience of getting away from the Theatre will consequently be severely felt by the Beau Monde" (Morning Chronicle, 8 Dec.)

Event Comment: A New Opera (1st time [in London; 1st performed at Venice, 1792]), accompanied with Chorusses; the music entirely new, composed [i.e. revised] here by Bianchi. With entirely new Scenes, designed by Hamilton and executed by Walmsley, Dresses and Decorations

Event Comment: 2nd piece [1st time; MD 3, by Thomas Morton]: With new Scenery, Dresses and Decorations. The Overture, Chorusses, and new Musick by Dr Arnold. The new Scenery by Rooker, Marinari, &c. Books of the Songs to be had at the Theatre. Morning Chronicle, 1 July 1795: This Day is published Zorinski (2s.)

Event Comment: A new Serious Opera [1st time; by Lorenzo DaPonte]; the music entirely new, composed here by Bianchi. With Chorusses and new Scenery, Decorations and Dresses

Event Comment: The Publick is most respectfully informed that on account of the sudden Indisposition of a Principal Performer, the new Tragedy of The Conspiracy [advertised on playbill of 11 Nov.] is obliged to be deferred. "A new tragedy, entitled The Conspiracy, written by Mr Jephson, was announced for representation on Saturday evening; but (as the apology stated) on account of the indisposition of a principal performer, The Grecian Daughter was substituted in its room. All the principal performers advertised for the new play having, however, appeared in The Grecian Daughter, it is supposed, and generally understood, that it was the interference of the Lord Chamberlain's interdiction (who, by the mighty virtues of his white wand, valiantly frustrated the meditated Conspiracy), that produced the sudden change of performance" (Morning Herald, 14 Nov.), Receipts: #256 7s. 6d. (167.6.6; 84.11.0; 4.10.0)

Event Comment: [Mainpiece in place of The Force of Ridicule; afterpiece of Richard Coeur de Lion, both advertised on playbill of 28 Nov.] "The new Comedy last night was deferred upon the pretext of Miss Farren's illness...The Manager sent after Mrs Siddons, who was found at Covent-Garden Theatre, seeing Abroad and at Home. Brandon, however, ordered her a chair, and she kindly performed Isabella. Wroughton read the Father" (Oracle, 30 Nov.). "For near an hour the audience waited patiently...At half past seven Palmer addressed the audience" He said that Miss Farren was ill, that to those who preferred to leave the theatre their money would be returned, and that instead of the new play Mrs Siddons would act Isabella, "as soon as the dresses could be prepared for that purpose. This address was by no means favourably received, and hundreds of persons immediately left the house. A few minutes after eight, the Curtain drew up to the tragedy, which was well performed, and much applauded by the few who remained to witness it" (Morning Herald, 30 Nov.). "November 30. Miss Farren last night refused to appear in a new Play at Drury Lane which made much confusion in the House. The cause assigned was indisposition but that was not believed by the audience; and the fact Lysons says is, that as she cannot obtain payment from the Theatre, she resolutely told them she wd. not appear unless her demands were paid...Such is the unprincipled conduct of Sheridan" (Diary of Joseph Farington, 1922, I, 174). [On 1 Dec. Morning Herald prints a letter from Miss Farren, from Green-street, Grosvenor-square. saying that she really was ill. The editor of the paper adds a note in which he affirms his positive knowledge that rumours about a dispute as to Miss Farren's unpaid salary were without foundation.] Receipts: #134 2s. (82.2; 50.18; 1.2)

Event Comment: Afterpiece [1st time; BALL P 1, by John Cartwright Cross. Text, i.e. synopsis of ballet, and the songs, in Cross's Circusiana (Lackington, Allen and Co., 1809), Vol. I. Bologna, Bologna Jun. and Mrs Parker were from the Royal Circus]: Invented and under the Direction of Cross. With entire new Scenes, Dresses, Music and Decorations. The Overture and Music principally new, with a Selection of some novel Irish Air, by Reeve, composer of the Music to Oscar and Malvina, &c. The Harp by Weippert. The Scenery, comprehending a Display of the most Romantic Views in Ireland, painted by Richards, Phillips, Lupino, Hollogan, and Blackmore. The Machinery by Cresswell, Sloper and Goostree. The Dresses by Dick, Mrs Egan, &c. The Following are a Part of the new Scenes, &c.: The Ancient Temple, dedicated to Bel, the God of Fire, with the Flactaga, or Sacred Fire burning; it having been enacted that, on the last Evening of October, no other Fire should be Used thro'out the Kingdom, that all might be derived from that, which being a Fire Sacrifice, would render the rest Propitious and Holy. The Dargle, where the Irish Druids consulted their Oracle. A View near Wicklow. The Salmon Leap. Entrance of a Subterraneous Pass. Maon's Cavern. Cemetery and Dungeon, appertaining to the Round Tower, Moated Castle, &c. Receipts: #264 2s. 6d. (259.19.6; 4.3.0)

Event Comment: Afterpiece [1st time; MD 2, by George Colman, ynger, based on Raoul Barbe Bleue, by Michel Jean Sedaine (although, in the 1st edition of the play, this denied by Colman). Text (Cadell and Davies, 1798)]: The Scenery, Machinery, Dresses, and Decorations entirely new. The Musick composed and selected [from Paisiello] by Kelly. The Scenes designed and executed by Greenwood? Jun, Chalmers, and others. The Machinery, Decorations, and Dresses designed and under the direction of Johnston, and executed by him, Underwood, Gay, and Miss Rein. Books of the Songs to be had in the Theatre. Times, 8 Feb. 1798: This Day is published Blue Beard (1s. 6d.). "In the course of the representation, many blunders in working the scenery, which are unavoidable in a first representation of this nature, occurred, and the delays which took place were frequently very great...It was twelve o'-clock before the curtain dropped...The Expense of getting it up is said to be not less than #2,000" (London Chronicle, 18 Jan.). Proud swells the tide, with loads of capering heels, And vacant Folly shouts applause in peals; Hoards, even beyond th miser's wish, are thrown, To deck some sham farago for the town...Money for dresses, money for new scenes, New music, decorations, and machines; The cost of these, including every freak, Would pay ten decent players four pounds a week. Anthony Pasquin (pseud. for John Williams), "Innovation," in The Devil [1787], II, no. 2, 46. Receipts: #319 14s. 6d. (216.17.6; 102.2.0; 0.15.0)

Event Comment: The Diary and Will of Elias Ashmole, ed. Gunter, pp. 70-71: 13 Dec. 1660: The King going to a Play at the new Theatre this afternoon, had his coach (the leathers whereby the coach hung broke and so the coach fell from the wheels) overturned over against the new Exchange, but (blessed be God) had no hurt. Sir Francis Floyd passing by took him in his arms and carried him to his coach. The Earl of Latherdale and my Lord of Ossory being with the King in his coach

Event Comment: Edition of 1662: Being a True Relation of the Honourable the City of Londons Entertaining Their Sacred Majesties Upon the River of Thames, and Welcoming them from Hampton-Court to White-Hall. Expressed and set forth in several Shews and Pageants, the 23 day of August 1662. According to the printed version, the management of the pageant was under the care of Peter Mills, Surveyor; Malin, Water Bayliff; Thomas Whiting, Joyner; Richard Cleere, Carver. The songs were set by John Gamble, one of His Majesty's Servants. Evelyn, Diary: I this day was spectator of the most magnificent Triumph that certainly ever floted on the thames, considering the innumerable number of boates & Vessels, dressed and adorned with all imaginable Pomp: but above all, the Thrones, Arches, Pageants, & other representations, stately barges of the Lord Major, & Companies, with various Inventions, musique, & Peales of Ordnance both from the vessels & shore, going to meete & Conduct the new Queene from Hampton Court to White-hall, at the first time of her Coming to Towne.... his Majestie & the Queene, came in an antique-shaped open Vessell, convered with a State or Canopy of Cloth of Gold, made in forme of a Cupola, supported with high Corinthian Pillars, wreathd with flowers, festoones & Gyrlands: Pepys, Diary: We got into White Hall garden, and so to the Bowling-green, and up to the top of the new Banqueting House there, over the thames, which was a most pleasant place as any I could have got; and all the show consisted chiefly in the number of boats and barges; and two pageants, one of a King, and another of a Queen, with her Maydes of Honour sitting at her feet very prettily; and they tell me the Queen is Sir Richard Ford's daughter. Anon come the King and Queen in a barge under a canopy with 10,000 barges and boats, I think, for we could see no water for them, nor discern the King nor Queen. And so they landed at White Hall Bridge, and the great guns on the other side went off

Event Comment: The King's Company. This marks the opening of the new Theatre Royal in Bridges Street, Drury Lane, to which Killigrew moved his company from Vere Street. Downes erroneously gives the opening date as 8 April, a fact which led to the creation of the famous spurious playbill for Bridges Street, Thursday, 8 April 1663. See Montague Summers, The Restoration Theater (London, 1934), p. 15. Pepys, Diary: This day the new Theatre Royal begins to act with scenes the Humorous Lieutenant, but I have not time to see it, nor could stay to see my Lady Jemimah lately come to town, and who was here in the house. Downes (p. 3): Note, this Comedy was Acted Twelve Days Successively

Event Comment: The King's Company. There is no indication as to whether this is the first performance of the play. Pepys, Diary: I took my wife out, for I do find that I am not able to conquer myself as to going to plays till I come to some new vowe concerning it, and that I am now come, that is to say, that I will not see above one in a month at any of the publique theatres till the sum of 50s. be spent, and then none before New Year's day next, unless that I do become worth #1,000 sooner than then, and then am free fo come to some other terms.... to the King's house, and there met Mr Nicholson, my old colleague, and saw The Usurper, which is no good play, though better than what I saw yesterday. However, we rose unsatisfied

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. Pepys does not indicate that this performance is the premiere, and Summers, The Playhouse of Pepys, p. 137, states, without offering his evidence, that the play first appeared on 11 Aug. 1664. The play also appears in Herbert, Dramatic Records, p. 138. If Pepys saw the premiere, the play was possibly given on 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 22, 23, 24 Aug. Pepys, Diary: Mr Creed dining with me I got him to give my wife and me a play this afternoon, lending him money to do it, which is a fallacy that I have found now once, to avoyde my vowe with, but never to be more practised I swear, and to the new play, at the Duke's house, of Henry the Fifth; a most noule play, writ by my Lord Orrery; wherein Betterton, Harris, and Ianthe's parts are most incomparably wrote and done, and the whole play the most full of height and raptures of wit and sense, that ever I heard; having but one incongruity, or what did not please me in it, that is, that King Harry promises to plead for Tudor to their Mistresse, Princesse Katherine of France, more than when it comes to it he seems to do; and Tudor refused by her with some kind of indignity, not with a difficulty and honour that it ought to have been done in to him. Downes, Roscius Anglicanus, pp. 27-28: This Play was Splendidly Cloath'd: The King, in the Duke of York's Coronation Suit; Owen Tudor, in King Charle's: Duke of Burgundy, in the Lord of Oxford's, and the rest all New. It was Excellently Perform'd, and Acted 10 Days Successively

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. Pepys, Diary: With Creed, my wife, and Mercer to a play at the Duke's, of my Lord Orrery's, called Mustapha, which being not good, made Betterton's part and Ianthe's but ordinary too, so that we were not contented with it at all...All the pleasure of the play was, the King and my Lady Castlemayne wer there; and pretty witty Nell Gwin?, at the King's house, and the younger Rebecca? Marshall sat next us; which pleased me mightily. Downes (p. 26): All the Parts being new Cloath's with new Scenes, Sir William's great Care of having it perfect and exactly perform'd, it produc'd to himself and Company vast Profit

Event Comment: The King's Company. Pepys, Diary: In haste to carry my wife to see the new play I saw yesterday, she not knowing it. But there, contrary to expectation, find The Silent Woman. However in; and there Knipp come into the pit...[and] tells me the King was so angry at the liberty taken by Lacy's part to abuse him to his face, that he commanded they should act no more, till Moone [Mohun] went and got leave for them to act again, but not this play. The King mighty angry; and it was better indeed, but very true and witty. I never was more taken with a play than I am with this "Silent Woman," as old as it is, and as often as I have seen it. There is more wit in it than goes to ten new plays. Nathaniel Wanby, Coventry, 1667: We have known in our time that the Silent Woman hath had the loud applause of a whole theatre (BM Harleian MS. 6430, p.23)

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. It is not certain this is the first performance, but it may well have been. This performance is on the L. C. list, 5@139, p. 125. See also Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p. 346. Pepys, Diary: Sir W. Pen and I to the Duke's house, where a new play. The King and Court there: the house full, and an act begun. And so went to the King's. Downes (p. 28): Sir Martin Marral, The Duke of New-Castle, giving Mr Dryden a bare translation of it, out of a Comedy of the Famous French Poet Monseur Moleire: He adapted the Part purposely for the Mouth of Mr Nokes, and curiously Polishing the whole....All the Parts being very Just and Exactly perform'd, specially Sir Martin and his Man, Mr Smith, and several others since have come very near him, but none Equall'd, nor yet Mr Nokes in Sir Martin: This Comedy was Crown'd with an Excellent Entry. In the Last Act at the Mask, by Mr Priest and Madam Davies; This, and Love in a Tub, got the Company more Money than any preceding Comedy

Event Comment: The King's Company. Pepys, Diary: It being almost twelve o'clock, or a little more, and carried [Mercer, Mrs Horsfield, and Mrs Gayet] to the King's playhouse, where the doors were not then open; but presently they did open; and we in, and find many people already come in, by private ways, into the pit, it being the first day of Sir Charles Sidly's new play, so long expected, The Mulberry Garden, of whom, being so reputed a wit, all the world do expect great matters. I having sat here awhile, and eat nothing to-day, did slip out, getting a boy to keep my place...And so to the play again, where the King and Queen, by and by, come, and all the Court; and the house infinitely full. But the play, when it come, though there was, here and there, a pretty saying, and that not very many neither, yet the whole of the play had nothing extraordinary in it, at all, neither of language nor design; insomuch that the King I did not see laugh, nor pleased the whole play from the beginning to the end, nor the company; insomuch that I have not been less pleased at a new play in my life, I think. And which made it the worse was, that there never was worse musick played--that is, worse things composed, which made me and Captain Rolt, who happened to sit near me, mad. So away thence, very little satisfied with the play, but pleased with my company. [For Bannister's setting a song for Mrs Knepp for this play, see 7 May 1668.

Event Comment: The King's Company. Pepys, Diary: By and by comes my wife and Deb. home, have been at the King's playhouse to-day, thinking to spy me there; and saw the new play, Evening Love, of Dryden's, which, though the world commends, she likes not. Evelyn, Diary: To a new play, with severeall of my Relations, the Evening Lover, a foolish plot, & very Prophane, so as it afflicted me to see how the stage was. degenerated & poluted by the licentious times

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. This performance is on the L. C. list at Harvard. See VanLennep, "Plays on the English Stage," p. 13. Diary of Richard Boyle, Earl of Burlington: Heer dined with mee my lord of Canterbury my ld Sandwich and my brother and sister Orrery, and in the afternoone wee all went but his Grace to see my brothers new play cald Tryphon which was much applauded (Volume IV, in the Library at Chatsworth. This excerpt supplied by Kathleen Lynch). Pepys, Diary: My wife tells me of my Lord Orrery's new play "Tryphon," at the Duke of York's house...and [we] went thither, where, with much ado, at half-past one, we got into a blind hole in the 18d. place, above stairs, where we could not hear well, but the house infinite full, but the prologue most silly, and the play, though admirable, yet no pleasure almost in it, because just the very same design, and words, and sense, and plot, as every one of his plays have, any one of which alone would be held admirable, whereas so many of the same design and fancy do but dull one another; and this, I preceive, is the sense of every body else, as well as myself, who therefore showed but little pleasure in it

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. This play is on the L. C. lists at Harvard. See VanLennep, "Plays on the English Stage", p. 14. A song in this play, Thus all our Lives, with music by John Banister, is in Choice Songs and Ayres, 1673. Downes (Roscius Anglicanus, p. 31): [Concerning several plays] All which Expir'd the third Day, save the Royal Shepherdess, which liv'd Six. Pepys, Diary: To the Duke of York's house, and there before one, but the house infinite full, where, by and by, the King and Court come, it being a new play, or an old one new vamped, by Shadwell, called The Royal Shepherdesse!; but the silliest for words and design, and evepything, that ever I saw in my whole life, there being nothing in the world pleasing in it, but a good martial dance of pikemen, where Harris and another do handle their pikes in a dance to admiration; but never less satisfied with a play in my life

Event Comment: Lady Mary Bertie to Katherine Noel, 4 Feb. 1670@1: I have news to send you but that there are two very fine new plays lately acted (HMC, 12th Report, Part V [London, 1889], II, 22)