Book contents
- Frontmatter
- 1 The theatre
- 2 The performance
- 3 Adaptations and revivals
- 4 Comedy
- 5 Tragedy
- 6 Tragicomedy
- 7 Farce
- 8 Restoration and settlement
- 9 Change, skepticism, and uncertainty
- 10 Drama and political crisis
- 11 Spectacle, horror, and pathos
- 12 Gender, sexuality, and marriage
- 13 Playwright versus priest
- 14 The canon and its critics
- Biographies and selected bibliography
- Index
1 - The theatre
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 May 2006
- Frontmatter
- 1 The theatre
- 2 The performance
- 3 Adaptations and revivals
- 4 Comedy
- 5 Tragedy
- 6 Tragicomedy
- 7 Farce
- 8 Restoration and settlement
- 9 Change, skepticism, and uncertainty
- 10 Drama and political crisis
- 11 Spectacle, horror, and pathos
- 12 Gender, sexuality, and marriage
- 13 Playwright versus priest
- 14 The canon and its critics
- Biographies and selected bibliography
- Index
Summary
Our will and pleasure is that you prepare a Bill for our signature to passe our Greate Seale of England, containing a Grant unto our trusty and well beloved Thomas Killegrew Esquire, one of the Groomes of our Bed-chamber and Sir William Davenant Knight, to give them full power and authoritie to erect Two Companys of Players consisting respectively of such persons as they shall chuse and apoint; and to purchase or build and erect at their charge as they shall thinke fitt Two Houses or Theaters.
So began the draft of a warrant, dated 19 July 1660, allowing two courtiers of Charles II to have shared control of the London public theatre. The document went on to authorize Killigrew and Davenant to give performances with scenery and music, to establish ticket prices and employee salaries, and to suffer no rival companies. This draft, written, remarkably, by Davenant himself, served as the basis for a warrant a month later stating essentially the same thing and directing the two new managers to be their own censors of plays.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2000
- 2
- Cited by