Event Comment: Benefit for Mrs Bradshaw, Mrs Millidge, Mrs Johnston. Afterpiece by Allan Ramsay, with the Original Music, New Accompanyments, and a New Medley Scotch Overture. By Particular Desire. Paid Properties #1 17s. 7d. (Treasurer's Book). Receipts: #207 15s. Charges: #65 10s. Profits: #142 5s. (Treasurer's Book)

Event Comment: By Permission of the Right Honourable the Lord Chamberlain. Benefit for Mrs Lefevre. Mainpiece: Acted but once these 60 years [on 15 Mar. 1779]. Tickets to be had of Mrs Lefevre, No. 25, Frith-street. tickets delivered by Mrs Robinson will be taken

Event Comment: By Permission of the Right Hon. the Lord Chamberlain. Benefit for Mrs Pinto, formerly Miss Brett [recte Brent]. Afterpiece: With an additional scene, written by the author of the farce [Isaac Jackman], never performed in London. The Doors to be opened at 5:00. To begin precisely at 6:30. Tickets to be had of Mrs Pinto at Mrs Golden's, milliner, Blackmoor-street, Clare-market

Event Comment: Benefit for Mrs Harlowe

Event Comment: Mainpiece [1st time; CO 3, by James Cobb. Text 1st published (unauthorized), Dublin [1790]. Sga Storace had 1st appeared in concerts from 1774 to 1778, and at king's on 24 Apr. 1787 and thereafter]: With new Scenes, Dresses and Decorations. The new Music composed by Storace, the rest compiled from Linley? Sen., Purcell, Sarti, Paisiello, Martin y Soler?, Pleyel, &c. The Scenes designed and executed by Greenwood. Books of the Songs to be had at the Theatre. "In her own particular line on the stage [Sga Storace] was unrivalled, being an excellent actress, as well as a masterly singer. She settled entirely in England, and after quitting the opera (to which she was frequently recalled in times of distress, as was too often the case), she engaged at Drury Lane, where the English opera was raised to an excellence not known before, by her singing, with that of Mrs Crouch, Mrs Bland, Kelly, and Bannister, and under the direction of her brother Stephen Storace, who composed, or rather compiled, several very pretty operas, of which the Haunted Tower, and the Siege of Belgrade still remain favorites, and are frequently performed" (Mount-Edgcumbe, 65). Account-Book, 4 Jan. 1790: Paid Cobb on Acct. of the Purchase of the Copyright of the Haunted Tower #157 10s.; 27 Feb. 1790: Paid Cobb in full for Copyright #52 10s. Receipts: #219 9s. 6d. (200.13.0; 17.14.6; 1.2.0)

Event Comment: Mainpiece: Not acted these 3 years. [Kemble Mem.: Miss Farren refused to act this night because she didn't like her Dress. Mrs Goodall play[ed] the Widow Bellmour for her.] Receipts: #118 18s. (73.17.0; 40.3.0; 3.5.6; tickets not come in: 1.12.6)

Event Comment: Benefit for Mrs Clendining. At the Special Desire of his Excellency the Turkish Ambassador [see 7 May]. 3rd piece: Engagement, etc. as 26 May, but Moving Figures not specified. Morning Herald, 26 May: Tickets to be had of Mrs Clendining, No. 5, Bow-street, Covent Garden. Receipts: #301 10s. (136/3; 6/12; tickets: 158/15)

Event Comment: Benefit for Mrs Siddons. 1st piece: Never acted in this Theatre. [Prologue by George Colman, elder. Monologue by Hester Lynch Piozzi (European Magazine, May 1797, p. 343).] True Briton, 12 Apr.: Tickets to be had of Mrs Siddons, No. 49, Great Marlborough-street. "The scenery destroyed much of the effect of the tragedy; for the characters are supposed to be 'steeped in poverty to the very lips;' and yet their apartments would have become a family in the meridian of wealth and prosperity. Mrs Siddons was also too well dressed for Mrs Wilmot" (Monthly Mirror, May 1797, p. 308). "In the scene in which [Mrs Siddons's] son having put into her hands a casket to keep, and she having touched a spring it opens and she sees jewels, her husband (Kemble) enters, and in despair exclaims, 'Where shall we get bread?' With her eyes fixed on the jewels, she runs to him, knocks the casket against her breast and exclaims, 'Here! Here!' In Mrs Siddons's tone and in her look there was an anticipation of the murder which was to take place" (Robinson, I, 39). Receipts: #618 2s. (386.8.6; 43.19.0; 2.4.0; tickets: 185.10.6) (charge: #211 1s.)

Event Comment: Benefit for Farley, Sloper & Mrs Watts. 2nd piece [1st time; M. INT 1]: Consisting of Song, Catch, Glee, and Dance. With appropriate Scenery analogous to the different subjects. [3rd piece in place of Harlequin and Faustus, advertised on playbill of 2 June.] Receipts: #292 6s. 6d. (51.10.0; 5.1.0; tickets: 235.15.6, of which Farley took #55 9s. 6d.; Sloper #117 13s.; Mrs Watts #62 13s.)

Event Comment: The United Company. The date of the first performance is not known, but it very probably occurred not later than May 1691, as the play was advertised in the London Gazette, 4-8 June 1691. For discussions of it, see E. W. White, Early Performances of Purcell's Operas, Theatre Notebook, XIII (1958-59), 44-45, and R. E. Moore, Henry Purcell and the Restoration Theatre, Chapter III. Downes, Roscius Anglicanus, p. 42: King Arthur an Opera, wrote by Mr Dryden: it was Excellently Adorn'd with Scenes and Machines: The Musical Part set by Famous Mr Henry Purcel; and Dances made by Mr Jo. Priest: The Play and Musick pleas'd the Court and City, and being well perform'd, twas very Gainful to the Company. Roger North: I remember in Purcell's excellent opera of King Arthur, when Mrs Butler, in the person of Cupid, was to call up Genius, she had the liberty to turne her face to the scean, and ner back to the theater. She was in no concerne for her face, but sang a recitativo of calling towards the place where Genius was to rise, and performed it admirably, even beyond any thing I ever heard upon the English stage....And I could ascribe it to nothing so much as the liberty she had of concealing her face, which she could not endure should be so contorted as is necessary to sound well, before her gallants, or at least her envious sex. There was so much of admirable musick in that opera, that it's no wonder it's lost; for the English have no care of what's good, and therefore deserve it not (Roger North on Music, ed. John Wilson [London, 1959], p. 217-18)

Event Comment: Benefit Arthur, Dupre, Mrs Woodward. Receipts: #160 (Rylands MS.)

Event Comment: At the New Wells, London Spaw, Clerkenwell. Benefit for Mrs Yeates. By Desire of some Gentlemen and Ladies. Particular care is taken to have the House warm. To begin at half an hour after six

Event Comment: The Farce altered form Ben Johnson, by the author of The Tobacconist. By Authority for one Night only. Benefit Vandermere. Tickets delivered by Fearon, Collett, Mrs Granger, Dancer, Mrs Didier will be admitted. [Hissed (Whitehall Evening Post).

Event Comment: Mainpiece: Not acted these 2 years. [Mrs Kennedy was from the York theatre.

Event Comment: By Permission of the Lord Chamberlain. Mainpiece: Written by the celebrated Mrs Eliza Haywood. Not acted these 6 years. Afterpiece [1st time; F 2 (?)]: Written by a Comedian [unidentified. not in Larpent MS; not published]. The above Pieces have been a long Time in Rehearsal, and as no Expense has been spared in procuring respectable Performers from capital Theatres, there is no doubt (as the Comedies have sterling Merit) of their giving Satisfaction to the Audience. The Doors to be opened at 5:15. To begin at 6:15

Event Comment: [The playbill assigns Rosetta to Miss Harper, but "Last night Miss Harper was indisposed, in consequence of which Mrs Martyr was obliged to play Rosetta" (Morning Chronicle, 8 Nov.).] Receipts: #95 10s. (94/15; 0/15)

Event Comment: By Permission of the Lord Chamberlain. Benefit for Mrs Greville and Williams. Mainpiece: Not acted these 5 years. Tickets delivered for the 17th of December will be admitted. Tickets and places to be had of Williams at Mr Spoke's, Tottenham Court; Mr White, Auctioneer, Queen street, Westminster; Messrs Ellis and Scott, Old Bond-street; Mr Hewitt, New Bond-street; Mr Cowcieroy, Great Russell-street, Bloomsbury; and at the Excise Office Coffee-House, Old Bond-street

Event Comment: By Permission of the Lord Chamberlain. Mainpiece: Written by Wycherly, with Alterations [from Love in a Wood; or, St. James's Park]. Not acted these 100 years [acted at DL, 15 Aug. 1718. Author of Prologue unknown]. Afterpiece: Taken from Mrs Centlivre's play of the same title. The Doors to be opened at 5:00. To begin at 6:00

Event Comment: [Mainpiece in place of The Duenna, announced on playbill of 7 Dec. In afterpiece the playbill retains Mrs Morton, but on the Kemble playbill a MS annotation substitutes Mrs Inchbald. And see 10 Dec.] Receipts: #85 6s. 6d. (82/16/6; 2/10/0)