Identifier: shaksperetosheri00thal (find matches)
Title: Shakspere to Sheridan; a book about the theatre of yesterday and to-day
Year: 1922 (1920s)
Authors: Thaler, Alwin, 1891-
Subjects: Theater -- England History English drama -- History and criticism Actors and actresses -- England Theaters -- England London
Publisher: Cambridge : Harvard University Press (etc., etc.)
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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at the rate of £20 per annum, that, there might be Cessation_of playeing and playes_there. The Elizabethan provincial companies, likewise, were constantly engaged in the most vigorous sort of rivalry, even to the extent of stealing one anothers licenses; and the stealing of plays was a rather commonplace occurrence, even in London. We have seen that many of the old tricks of the trade were still very much alive in Restoration times and in the eighteenth century, and that the companies continued to borrow each others plays and players with delightful in-formality. They kept a keen watch upon each other also when it came to securing the services of new actors who had made their mark in the provinces. Thus, both houses sought to engage James Spiller, sometime about 1708 or 1709, when that comedian had won fame as a ^ See above, p. 74. ■ Hamlet, ii, 2,355 fF. ^ Wallace, Shakespeare and his London Associates, pp. 95-96. * Malone, III, 229, 159-160; cf. the writers note in Modern Philology, XVII, 12.
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The Young Roscius - Master Betty reading his part. This astonishing youth was only thirteen years of age last September 1804 THE MANAGERS 151 stroller. Again, in 1775, Garrick sent out two scouts to report concerning the acting of Mrs. Siddons, who was beginning to make a reputation. One of them wrote to his principal that if he wished to engage the actress it would be necessary to strike at once, since some Covent Garden emissaries were hanging about for that very purpose.^ Richard Cumberland tells of a similar case, — that of Henderson, whom he recommended to Garrick after seeing him act at Bath. While Garrick hesitated, Henderson was engaged by Colman for the Haymarket, and there he scored so heavily that Sheridan made it one of the first acts of his management to secure him for Drury Lane. Competition of this sort, of course, far outlived the eighteenth century. The Master Bettycraze of 1804 is but one later case in point. Both patenthouses laid claim to the valuable services of this infant prodigy, and an official arbitrator decided that both claims were just. And so the boy actor played first at Covent Garden and

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