Event Comment: Benefit D'Urfey. By His Royal Highness's Command

Event Comment: Benefit Mrs Pritchard. Mainpiece: Written by Shakespear. Servants admitted to keep places on the stage, which will be fram'd into Front and side boxes, and entirely enclosed after the manner of an Oratorio. Ladies are desired to send servants to keep places to prevent mistakes. Tickets and places to be had at Mrs Pritchard's in Duke's late Earl's Court, Bow St.; At Mr Vaughan's, the Royal Exchange, Cornhill, and at the stage door

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. Pepys, Diary: Against my judgment and conscience (which God forgive, for my very heart knows that I offend God in breaking my vows therein) to the Opera, which is now newly begun to act again, after some alteracion of their scene, which do make it very much worse; but the play, Love and Honour, being the first time of their acting it, is a very good plot, and well done. Downes (pp. 21-22): This Play was Richly Cloath'd; The King giving Mr Betterton his Coronation Suit;...The Duke of York giving Mr Harris his...and my Lord of Oxford gave Mr Joseph Price his...and all the other Parts being very well done: The Play having a great run, Produc'd to the Company great Gain and Estimation from the Town

Event Comment: Paid the Duke of Bedford 1 Yrs. Rent #339 16s. 3d. Receipts: #164 At. 6d. (132/12/0; 30/6/0; 1/6/6)

Event Comment: Last Thursday morning, Mr Harrington, Prompter to the Theatre Royal, being delerious and in a high fever, in the absence of his Nurse-keeper, threw himself out of his lodging window, and was killed by the fall. [See A Full and true Account of the woeful and wonderftl apparition of Hurloe Harrington, late prompter to the Theatre Royal in Dublin (London, 1750).] Receipts: #140 (Cross)

Event Comment: The United Company. Newdigate newsletters, 2 June 1683: The same day [31 May] their Royall highnesses... in ye afternoone Countenanced a new play with their presences (Wilson, More Theatre Notes from the Newdigate Newsletters, p. 59). Wilson proposes that this play is Dame Dobson, as the separately Printed Prologue bears Luttrell's acquisition date of 1 June 1683 (Bindley Collection, William Andrews Clark@Jr@Library). The separately printed Prologue and Epilogue are reprinted in Wiley, Rare Prologues and Epilogues, pp. 176-78

Event Comment: Paid Duke of Bedford 1 Yrs. Rent #343 5s. 1d. Afterpiece [1st time; F 2, by Edward Morris. Author of Prologue unknown]: With new Dresses and Decorations. Public Advertiser, 8 Apr. 1790: This Morning is published The Adventurers (1s.). Receipts: #260 8s. (226.5.0; 31.16.0; 2.4.6; ticket not come in: 0.2.6)

Event Comment: [M+Midwife, No II (at about this date) includes a Letter from Mary Midnight to David Garrick, Esq praising him as actor and even as manager, but asking why he neglects Fletcher's plays: "What is the reason that the public patience is so largely try'd, and the human understanding so shamefully insulted as it is, by a perpetual repetition of the Duke and No Duke, the Anatomist, and twenty things of like nature?" Concludes by remarking that the London Cuckolds is a scandal to virtue.] Receipts: #120 (Cross)

Event Comment: Receipts: #132 0s. 6d. Paid Kemp #9 12s.; Meares #1 10s.; Mr Day (turner) #12 1s.; Pattinson (tallow chandler) three bills to 11 Feb., #54 8s. 8d. Was at Covent Garden Gallery with Sir Harriott to see the Jovial Crew and Duke and No Duke. I met Legyt, Piggot, Bettenson there & got home by 10 (Hailey, Brietzcke Diary, Vol. 197, p. 72)

Event Comment: Benefit for Aickin. Mainpiece: With a Triumphal Entry of Alexander into Babylon. Public Advertiser, 10 Apr.: Tickets to be had of Aickin, No. 6, York Street, Covent Garden. Receipts: #187 ior. (144/5; tickets: 43/5) (charge: #74 10s.)

Event Comment: By His Royal Highness's Command

Event Comment: Being the last time of performing it this Season, at the particular desire of several Persons of Quality

Event Comment: Benefit for Bridges and Blakes. Rec'd Cash #47 3s., plus #100 4s. from tickets. Total #147 7s. (Treasurer's Book). Yesterday Morning died of a Dropsy, Mr William Mills, belonging to the Theatre-Royal in Drury Lane; a person formerly well esteem'd in his profession, and if his infirmities in the latter part of his life render'd him less useful to the stage, yet he amply made amends for it, in the deserv'd character of an Honest man, and an indulgent Husband. -The Stratagem will be play'd on Sat. next, for the benefit of Mrs Mills (General Advertiser). Receipts: #160 (Cross); charges #63 (Treasurer's Book)

Event Comment: Last Tuesday Signior Pasquali, Master of the Band of Music at the Theatre Royal, Mr Cibber and some other prominent players arriv'd from England to act the ensuing season [in Dublin]. Mrs Bland arriv'd [in Dublin] last Sunday from England and will appear tomorrow night in the character of Miranda in the Busy Body. Receipts: #180

Event Comment: Mainpiece: Not acted in 5 years. [See 11 Dec. 1744. For further comment on Dexter, see Genest, IV, p. 341.] One Mr Dexter did Oroonoko , a Gent of Ireland--who never appear'd upon a Stage before--he had ye Greatest applause ever heard & indeed deservedly a Sweet Voice, great feeling--his name was not in ye Bills--only by a Gent (Cross). We hear that a Comedy call'd Eastward Hoe; or, The Prentices, written by Ben Johnson, Chapman, and Marston, is now reviving at the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane, and will be acted the 29th. [A four page double column account of the text of Oroonoko appeared in the Gentleman's Magazine, 1752, pp. 163-67.] Receipts: #130 (Cross)

Event Comment: A New Musical Entertainment, call'd the Shepherd's Lottery is now in rehearsal, at the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane, and will be perform'd there in a few days. The music is composed by Dr Boyce. Receipts: #130 (Cross)

Event Comment: Benefit for Mr Norton Amber, formerly a Patentee, & Banker, now Pit Doorkeeper (Cross), late of the Strand (Winston MS 7). Tickets to be had at Mr Pierce's at the Castle Tavern, Corner of Henrietta Street, in Bedford Street, Covent Garden; Mr Frye's a Hosier, the Corner of James Street, Long Acre; King Street Coffee House, near Guild Hall; Batson's Coffee House, Cornhill; and at the Theatre. Places will be taken at the Stage Door of the theatre. This Day publish'd, Young Scarron, at 2s. 6d. sew'd, 3s. bound. Dedicated to the managers of both theatres. "The Stage reproves the follies of the age. For once we'll laugh at Follies of the Stage." Anon. Printed for T. Tyre, near Gray's Inn Holborn and W. Reeve in Fleet St. (General Advertiser). A comical and satirical account of summer strolling players: "When the time draws near that the Theatres Royal disband their troops, or rather grant their furloses till the next Campaign, each private Man becomes an Officer; and they who for nine months before submitted to Monarchical Government, now form themselves into several republicks for the remaining three. Then each Hero takes the path of his own ambition...The various whimsical disputes that arise from this kind of Emulation, are, in part the subject of the following sheets" (173 pp. Written by Thomas Mozeen, Biographia Dramatica). Receipts: #220 (Cross)

Event Comment: [Benefit] for 3 orphan Daughters of a Cit of London (Cross). Tickets to be had at Will's and the Union Coffee House in Cornhill; Grigsby's behind the Royal Exchange; Seagoes in Holborn; the Bedford in Covent Garden; George's in the Haymarket, and at the Stage Door of the Theatre, where places for the Boxes may be taken. Receipts: #264 (Cross)

Event Comment: Mainpiece: At the Desire of several persons of Quality. At the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane, on Monday April 2 will be performed Othello, for the benefit of Mr Mossop; Othello by Mossop, Iago to b reviv'd by Garrick. It is hoped that those Ladies and Gentlemen who have engag'd places will excuse its being deferr'd to the above day, as a new tragedy, and a multiplicity of other business render it impossible for Mr Garrick to revive the character of Iago in the due course of Time. Receipts: #170 (Cross)

Event Comment: Benefit for Morris, Marr, Berrisford, Gray, Brownsmith, Miss Hippisley. Tickets deliver'd for Richard III and The Mourning Bride, and by Spilsbury, Royal, Hawksly, Costin, and Mrs Smith will be taken. Receipts: #170. 11 people had tickets (Cross)

Event Comment: The King's Company. Pepys, Diary: Hence my wife and I to the Theatre, and there saw The Joviall Crew, where the King, Duke and Duchess, and Madame Palmer, were; and my wife, to her great content, had a full sight of them all the while. The play full of mirth

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. The date of the premiere is not known, but the play was entered in the Stationers' Register, 18 Nov. 1670, and was probably performed not long before that date. Preface: The misfortune it had in having some of the Parts ill and imperfectly performed, as also the laying down of it, the sixth day of its being presented, when the Audience was very near as considerable, as the first day it was Acted, as also an intermission hitherto occasioned by the long absence of some principal Actresses, could not but prejudice the esteem it gain'd

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. This performance is on the L. C. lists at Harvard. See VanLennep, "Plays on the English Stage", p. 18: The New Utopia. There is no indication as to whether this performance was the premiere. The Preface refers to malice against the plays, and the edition of 1671 has a poem: To the Author of the New Utopia. On the Miscarriage of his Play in Acting