Event Comment: Benefit Thompson, Le Sac, Miss Rogers

Event Comment: Benefit for Miss George. Public Advertiser, 30 July: Tickets to be had of Miss George, No. 23, King-street, St. Ann's, Soho

Event Comment: Benefit for Mrs Martyr. 1st piece: Never performed here. [Miss Thornton is identified by MS annotation on Kemble playbill. Address by Horatio Edgar Robson (European Magazine, May 1786, p. 369).] 2nd piece: Not acted these 7 years. 3rd piece: Written by Henry Fielding. Morning Herald, 19 Apr.: Tickets to be had of Mrs Martyr, No. 31, Tavistock-street, Covent Garden. Receipts: #280 6s. 6d. (138/15/6; 3/6/0; tickets: 138/5/0) (charge: #105)

Event Comment: Benefit for Nix and Miss Barnes. Receipts: #254 3s. 6d. (67.10.0; 23.19.6; 2.19.0; tickets: 159.15.0) (charge: #106 2s. 9d.)

Event Comment: Benefit Havard, J. Delagarde, Miss Wherrit. At the particular Desire of several Persons of Distinction

Event Comment: Benefit Miss Norsa. At the particular Desire of several Persons of Quality

Event Comment: Benefit Ridout and Dupre. [Rich's Register adds Livier and Miss Brunette.] Mainpiece: Written by the late Mr Congreve. Receipts: money #11 19s.; tickets #104 16s

Event Comment: Mainpiece [1st time; T 5, by Richard Brinsley Sheridan, adapted from Die Spanier in Peru, by August Friedrich Ferdinand von Kotzebue. Prologue by Richard Brinsley Sheridan (consisting of the 1st 30 lines and the concluding couplet of his Prologue to The Miniature Picture); Epilogue by the Hon. William Lamb (see text). For publication see 1 July]: The Scenery, Dresses, and Decorations entirely new. The Musick, Airs and Chorusses incidental to the Piece composed and selected [from Gluck, Sacchini, &c. (Morning Chronicle, 25 May)] by Kelly. The Symphony preceding the Play, and those between the Acts, composed for the occasion by Dussek. The Scenery designed and executed by Marinari, Greenwood? Jun, Demaria, Banks, Blackmore, &c. [See Theatre Notebook, XX, 30-32, for suggestion that one scene was designed by DeLoutherbourg.] The Machinery, Decorations, and Dresses under the direction of Johnston, and executed by him, Underwood, and Gay. The Female Dresses designed and executed by Miss Rein. Account-Book, 14 May: Paid Miss Anne? Plumtree [i.e. Plumptree] for Spaniards in Peru #25. [It was this translation of Kotzebue's play that Sheridan adapted for the stage as Pizarro. For an account of the relationship between the translation and its adaptation see Marcella Gosch, "'Translators' of Kotzebue in England," Monatshefte fur deutschen Unterricht, XXXI, 178-83.] Paid Johnston [on this and other days] for sundries for Pizarro #135 14s. "It requires certainly more than English patience and spirits to sustain any Play of five hours in length. It is not one of the worst features of Pizarro that it contains a great deal which may be spared, without injury to the piece [see 25, 27 May]" (Morning Chronicle, 25 May). Receipts: #540 3s. 6d. (406.0.6; 17.5.0; 0.4.0; tickets sold by Fosbrook's Office: 116.14.0)

Event Comment: Benefit for Stede, Redman, Mrs Bambridge, Miss Minors, Miss Ferguson and Miss Morrison. Tickets deliver'd also by Goodall, Rawlings, Miss Allen, Widow Dupre, Mrs Hitchcock. No charges made, but House receiv'd 1!2 value of all income. Receipts: #16 14s. 6d. @Tickets Box Pit Gallery Value 1!2 Value@Stede 7 74 81 #20 19s. #10 9s. 6d.@Redman 8 71 38 #16 9s. #8 4s. 6d.@Goodall .. 46 34 #14 16s. #7 8s.@Mr Rawlings 16 57 65 #19 1s. #9 10s. 6d.@Miss Minors 17 71 26 #17 10s. #8 15s.@Mrs Ferguson 8 73 91 #22 1s. #11 6d.@Mrs Allen .. 25 19 #5 13s. #2 16s.@Morrison 26 41 55 #18 3s. #9 1s. 6d.@Dupre 10 44 57 #14 16s. #7 8s.@Hitchcock 23 67 34 #19 4s. [Seems to have rec'd full value #77 6s. 6d.]@Total 115 614 530 #173 17s.

Event Comment: Benefit for Shuter and Miss Haughton. Tickets at stage door. [For criticism of Shuter and Miss Haughton, see Genest, IV, p. 363, from The Present State of the Stage in Great Britain and Ireland, 1753. Nineteen of the Fifty-five pages of this pamphlet defend the stage on classicial authority and moral grounds from attacks by the religious bigots, and present an ideal picture of a manager, laying under some contribution, it would seem, the character of a manager presented ten years earlier (1743) in Queries to be Answered. The author especially likes the moral of Tate's alteration of Lear. The remaining pages give a paragraph or two of criticism to the leading actors and actresses in some of their most affecting parts (sixteen pages to Drury Lane Performers, all of whom appear in the author's eye to be either "Excellent" or "Very Good.") The remaining space is devoted to the performers at Covent Garden and at the Theatre Royal in Dublin. All those spoken of fare well in the hands of this bound-to-be pleased critic. Shuter is here commended for ability to play an Old Man convincingly though he was but 22 years old, and to play at all considering his lack of education. He possesses a great fund of drollery, and bids fair to be as great in low comedy as it is possible for man to conceive.' Miss Haughton described as an actress of promise. Seems never to have got the better of a lisp, and a Newcastle manner of pronouncing the letter 'r.'] Receipts: #290 (Cross)

Event Comment: Benefit for Miss Dulisse. Afterpiece By Particular Desire of several Ladies of Quality

Event Comment: Benefit for Mrs James and Miss Minors. No building on stage. Tickets of Mrs James at her lodgings at Mr Saunder's Carpenter, in Little Wild St., Lincoln's Inn Fields; Miss Minors' at Mr Nicholl, a Baker in Catherine St., and at stage door. An Information was given to Henry Fielding, Esq; that a Set of Barber's apprentices, journeymen staymakers, maid-servants, &c. had taken a large Room at the Black Horse in the Strand, to act the tragedy of The Orphan; the Price of Admittance One Shilling. About eight o'clock the said Justice issued his warrant, directed to Mr Welch, High Constable, who apprehended the said actors, and brought them before the said Justice, who, out of compassion to their youth, only bound them over to their good behavior. They were all conducted through the streets in their Tragedy Dresses, to the no small Diversion of the Populace. (General Advertiser). Receipts: #138 (Cross)

Event Comment: Benefit for Mrs Mills and Miss Minors. Tickets deliver'd by Taswell will be taken. [The Present State of the Stage commends Miss Minors in characters of awkward country girls.] Receipts: #170 (Cross)