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 United Company. The date of the premiere is not certain, but reference to it in the Gentleman's Journal, May 1693 (issued in June 1693), suggests that it appeared in May: We have had since my last a new Comedy called, The Female Vertuosos, something in it was borrowed from Moliere's Femmes Savantes, and as it hath Wit and Humour, it cannot but please in the perusal, as in the representation (p. 168). One song, Love thou art best of human joys, to words by Anne, Countess of Winchelsea, was set by Henry Purcell

Event Comment: With all the Original Decorations of Rising, Sinking, and Flying. Daily Post, 30 Oct.: The Play of King Henry the Eighth...having met with a very favourable Reception from the Town, we hear that the Players propose to add several different Characters of Dignity to the Procession of Queen Anne Bullen , with other proper Decorations

Event Comment: By Permission of the Lord Chamberlain. Benefit for Wilkinson. [For Miss Thompson see DNB, under Mary Anne Clarke.] Tickets to be had of Wilkinson, No. 33, Warwick-street, Golden-square. The Doors to be opened at 5:30. To begin at 6:30

Event Comment: Full Prices. There will not be room behind the Scenes for more than the persons acting in the coronation, [Others] cannot possibly be admitted. The coronation of their Majesties was followed by a stage representation of it at both houses...Garrick knew that Rich would spare no expense in the presentation of his show; he knew too that he had a taste in the ordering, dressing, and setting out these pompous processions, superior to his own; he therefore was contented with the old dresses which had been occasionally used from 1721-1761. This show he repeated for near forty nights successively, sometimes at the end of a play, and at other times after a farce. The exhibition was the meanest, and the most unworthy of a theatre, I ever saw. The stage was...opened into Drury Lane; and a new and unexpected sight surprised the audience, of a real bonfire, and the populace huzzaing and drinking porter to the health of Queen Anne Bullen. The Stage in the meantime, amidst the parading of Dukes, duchesses, archbishops, peeresses, heralds &c. was covered with a thick fog from the smoke of the fire, which served to hide the tawdry dresses of the processionalists. During this idle piece of mockery, the actors, being exposed to the suffocations of smoke, and the raw air from the open street, were seized with colds, rheumatisms, and swelled faces. At length the indignation of the audience delivered the comedians from this wretched badge of nightly slavery, which gained nothing to the managers but disgrace and empty benches. Tired with the repeated insult of a show which had nothing to support it but gilt copper and old rags, they fairly drove the exhibitors of it from the stage by hooting and hissing, to the great joy of the whole theatre....Rich...fully satisfied [the publick's] warmest imaginations (Davies, Life of Garrick, I, 365 ff.)

Event Comment: Benefit for Dibdin. In Act IV of mainpiece the Procession from the Abbey at the Coronation of Anne Bullenv. Paid John Doe for sticking Black Bills #6 3s. Receipts: none listed (charge: #84)

Event Comment: In Act IV of mainpiece the Procession from the Abbeyv at the Coronation of Anne Bullenv. [Abergavenny is not listed in playbill, but is referred to in review of the performance in Morning Chronicle, 28 Oct.

Event Comment: In Act I of mainpiece the Banquetv; In Act IV the Procession from the Abbeyv at the Coronation of Anne Bullenv; To conclude with the Ceremonial of a Royal Christeningv. The Music and a Chorus composed by Shield. Receipts: #180 6s. 6d. (179.2.6; 1.4.0)

Event Comment: Benefit for Mrs Pope. Mainpiece: In Act I Banquetv. [In Act IV] the Procession from the Abbeyv, at the Coronation of Anne Bullen . To conclude with the Ceremonial of a Royal Christeningv. Public Advertiser, 9 Mar.: Tickets to be had of Mrs Pope at her house in Half-moon-street, Piccadilly. Receipts: #289 8s. (202.6; 2.1; tickets: 85.1)

Event Comment: Mainpiece: In Act I The Banquetv. [In Act IV] the Procession from the Abbeyv at the Coronation of Anne Bullenv. To conclude with the Ceremonial of a Royal Christeningv. Receipts: #145 13s. 6d. (143.15.0; 1.18.6)

Event Comment: Benefit for Hull and Macready. 1st piece: In Act I a Grand Banquet. With the Procession [in Act IV] from the Abbey at the Coronation of Anne Bullen . To conclude with the Ceremonial of a Royal Christening. [In 2nd piece the scenes, as listed on 10 May, are indicated.] Morning Herald, 20 May: Tickets to be had of Hull, No. 7, Duke's-court, Westminster; Diary, 21 May: of Macready, No. 3, Mary-street, Charles-street, Tottenham-Court-Road. Receipts: #282 14s

Event Comment: Benefit for Mrs Pope. Mainpiece: Not acted these 6 years. In I a Grand Banquet Scene. A Procession from the Abbey at the Coronation of Queen Anne Bullen. The Piece to conclude with the ceremony at the Royal Christening. [Holman's 1st appearance as King Henry was at this theatre, 24 May 1793.] Morning Chronicle, 27 Apr.: Tickets to be had of Mrs Pope, Half Moon-street, Piccadilly. Receipts: #391 0s. 6d. (299.15.6; 2.9.0; tickets: 88.16.0)

Event Comment: A New Opera. [Text by Xeno. Music by Broschi.] Lucy Wentworth, 8 Jan.: My mama has been so good to give me leave to goe to the Opera to night with Lady Anne. 'Tis to be a new one call'd Merophe, but the foolish Buffo's are to be left out which I am very glad of, but am sorry they are to have five hundred pound a piece for acting that silly stuf two nights if one may believe Mr Hamilton.The Opera is to be heard but once for he says 'tis the worst that ever was composed.-Wentworth Papers, p. 528. phay The Defeat of Apollo. Rehearsed. DDaily Advertiser, 11 Jan.: The Prologue to The Defeat of Apollo, which, in Compliment to some Gentlemen, was spoke last Saturday at the Rehearsal, encourages the Town to hope for what is new and entertaining. [For additional puffs, see Daily Advertiser, 11 and 12 Jan.

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. The date of the premiere is not known. Pepys saw it on 6 March 1679@80, calling it a "New Play," and that may have been the first day. The Prologue alludes also to the Duke of York's triumphant return from Scotland on 24 Feb. 1679@80, and the play was entered in the Term Catalogues, May 1680. For Mrs Bracegirdle as the "little Girl," see Edmund Curll, History of the English Stage (1741), p. 26, and Lucyle Hook, Anne Bracegirdle's First Appearance, Theatre Notebook, XIII (1959), 134. For Betterton as Castalio and Mrs Barry as Monimia, probably as they performed in the next decade, see Cibber, Apology, ed. Lowe, I, 116, 160. Downes (Roscius Anglicanus, p. 37) gives the same cast except for omissions and except for Serina-Mrs Mountfort, who acted it later. Downes (pp. 37-38) adds: [Monimia, Belvidera in Venice Preserved, and Isabella in The Fatal Marriage] These three Parts, gain'd her the Name of Famous $Mrs Barry, both at court and City; for when ever She Acted any of these three Parts, she forc'd Tears from the Eyes of her Auditory, especially those who have any Sense of Pity for the Distress't. These 3 Plays, by their Excellent Performances, took above all the Modern Plays that succeeded. A song for this play, Come all the youths whose hearts have bled, the music by Forcer, is in Choice Ayres and Songs, The Third Book, 1681

Event Comment: By Permission of the Lord Chamberlain. Benefit for the Author. Play [1st time; T 5]: Written by the Rev. [Thomas] Stratford. The Doors to be opened at 6:00. To begin at 7:00. Boxes 5s. Pit 3s. 1st Gallery 2s. Upper Gallery 1s. Tickets to be had of Dr Stratford, No. 5, Cecil-street, Strand, and of Fosbrook at the Theatre. Dr Stratford, in the overflowing of a grateful heart, is happy indeed in returning thanks to the Ladies and Gentlemen who, with equal benignity and humanity, have so generously exerted themselves in bringing forward his tragedy of Russel. Above the mean manoeuvres that have been practised by persons he had the least reason to expect such a conduct from, and which have detained him almost three years in London, at a ruinous expense, he went with a party of his friends, on Wednesday last, to the Hay-market, in support of the other Lord Russel, penned by superior genius. As he never injured an individual, he trusts every intention to defeat the success of his play will be disappointed by a generous London audience who, he still presumes to hope, will be actuated by the same noble spirit and principle that first induced the Lady and Gentleman to undertake so arduous a task as appearing on a public theatre. As many parts of the play will be expunged and altered, he begs leave to mention that it cannot be again represented till Wednesday next, when the characters of Lord Howard and Hubert will be performed by two other Gentlemen, who have generously undertaken their parts, and an entire new address will be spoken by the Gentleman who performs Lord Russel, wrote by himself. "The performers ... rendered the Doctor's Tragedy one of the most laughable farces at which we were ever present. [It] has much Calimanco in it, and where we could hear a sentence compleat (which was seldom indeed) it abounded with Fustian" (Public Advertiser, 21 Aug.)