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David Garrick (1717-79) is synonymous with the golden age of English theatre. Widely acclaimed as an actor, he went on to become a shrewd theatre manager at Drury Lane. His years in charge of the Theatre Royal ensured its dramatic ascendancy and burnished his own considerable celebrity. These letters, first published in 1831, reveal Garrick's gregarious nature and shed light on his many friendships with leading ladies, fellow actors, contemporary playwrights, and members of high society. His love of Shakespeare's work is also evident, highlighting Garrick's pivotal role in ensuring the plays became established in the national consciousness. This two-volume collection was edited by James Boaden (1762-1839), who published several theatrical biographies (also reissued in this series). Containing correspondence for the period 1736-74, Volume 1 also includes a biographical account that traces the progress of Garrick's theatrical career.
Up until now, facts about theatrical rehearsal have been considered irrecoverable. But in this groundbreaking new study, Tiffany Stern gathers together two centuries' worth of historical material which shows how actors received and responded to their parts, and how rehearsal affected thecreation and revision of plays. Plotting theatrical change over time, from the mid-sixteenth to the late eighteenth century, this book will revolutionize the fields of textual and theatre history alike.
In 1710, England’s first copyright law gave authors the ability to own their works, but it was not until 1833 that literary property law was extended to protect dramatic performance. Between these dates, generations of playwrights grappled for control over their intellectual property in a cultural and legal environment that treated print differently from performance. As ownership became a central concern for many, actors fought to possess their dramatic parts exclusively, playwrights struggled to control and profit from repeat performances of their works, and managers tried to gain a monopoly over the performance of profitable plays. Owning Performance follows the careers of some of the 18th century’s most influential playwrights, actors, and theater managers as they vied for control over the period’s most popular shows. Without protection for dramatic literary property, these figures developed creative extra-legal strategies for controlling the performance of drama—quite literally performing their ownership. Their various strategies resulted in a culture of ephemerality, with many of the period’s most popular works existing only in performance and manuscript copies. Author Jane Wessel explores how playwrights and actors developed strategies for owning their works and how, in turn, theater managers appropriated these strategies, putting constant pressure on artists to innovate. Owning Performance reveals the wide-reaching effects of property law on theatrical culture, tracing a turn away from print that affected the circulation, preservation, and legacy of 18th century drama.
David Garrick's accomplishments as an actor, manager, and theatrical innovator brought him great fame and fortune, and his ideas influenced not only his own age but succeeding ages as well. Yet as a playwright, a part of the elegant combination of talents that was David Garrick, he has never achieved the critical reputation he richly deserves, in main because of the unavailability of texts and the lack of proper assessment of the historic importance of his plays in the English theatre. This first complete edition makes available to scholars and students all the plays of Gar­rick in well edited texts, with commentary and notes. The two volumes of Garrick's own plays published together here include the twenty-two plays of the Garrick canon attributable to him. Garrick's claim to serious consideration as a playwright rests upon these plays, written between 1740 and 1775.They are not all mas­terpieces, but their inclusion here, arranged in chronological order, will enable the stage his­torian to assess Garrick's progress as a dramatist. Contents: Lethe; or, Esop in the Shades. A Dra­matic Satire, 1740; The Lying Valet, 1741; Miss in Her Teens; or, The Medley of Lovers. A Farce, 1747; Lilliputt. A Dramatic Entertainment, 1756; The Male-Coquette; or, Seventeen Hundred Fifty Seven, 1757; The Guardian. A Comedy, 1759; Harlequin's Invasion; or, A Christmas Gambol, 1759; The Enchanter; or, Love and Magic. A Musi­cal Drama, 1760; The Farmer's Return from Lon­don. An Interlude, 1762; The Clandestine Mar­riage. A Comedy, 1766; and Neck or Nothing. A Farce, 1766.