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Theatre Royal, Drury Lane

The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, commonly known as Drury Lane, is a West End theatre and Grade I listed building in Covent Garden, London, England. The building faces Catherine Street (earlier named Bridges or Brydges Street) and backs onto Drury Lane. The present building, opened in 1812, is the most recent of four theatres that stood at the location since 1663, making it the oldest theatre site in London still in use.[1] According to the author Peter Thomson, for its first two centuries, Drury Lane could "reasonably have claimed to be London's leading theatre".[2] For most of that time, it was one of a handful of patent theatres, granted monopoly rights to the production of "legitimate" drama in London (meaning spoken plays, rather than opera, dance, concerts, or plays with music).

Address

Catherine Street
London, WC2
England

1,996 (4 levels)

1663 (1663) (original structure)

The first theatre on the site was built at the behest of Thomas Killigrew in the early 1660s, when theatres were allowed to reopen during the English Restoration. Initially known as "Theatre Royal in Bridges Street", the theatre's proprietors hired prominent actors who performed at the theatre on a regular basis, including Nell Gwyn and Charles Hart. In 1672, the theatre caught fire and Killigrew built a larger theatre on the same plot, renamed the "Theatre Royal in Drury Lane"; it opened in 1674. This building lasted nearly 120 years, under the leaderships of Colley Cibber, David Garrick and Richard Brinsley Sheridan, the last of whom employed Joseph Grimaldi as the theatre's resident Clown.


In 1791, under Sheridan's management, the building was demolished to make way for a larger theatre which opened in 1794. This new Drury Lane survived for 15 years before burning down in 1809. The building that stands today opened in 1812. It has been the residency of well known actors including Edmund Kean, comedian Dan Leno and the musical composer and performer Ivor Novello. From the Second World War, the theatre has primarily hosted long runs of musicals, including Oklahoma!, My Fair Lady, 42nd Street and Miss Saigon, the theatre's longest-running show.[3] The theatre is owned by the composer Andrew Lloyd Webber. Since January 2019, the venue has had ongoing renovations, and in July 2021, the theatre reopened after over two years' of extensive work and closures related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Disney's Frozen made its West End debut at Drury Lane on 27 August, with general shows starting from 8 September 2021.

Hauntings[edit]

The author Tom Ogden calls the Theatre Royal one of the world's most haunted theatres.[104] The appearance of almost any one of the handful of ghosts that are said to frequent the theatre signals good luck for an actor or production. The most famous ghost is the "Man in Grey", who appears dressed as a nobleman of the late 18th century: powdered hair beneath a tricorne hat, a dress jacket and cloak or cape, riding boots and a sword. Legend says that the Man in Grey is the ghost of a knife-stabbed man whose skeletal remains were found within a walled-up side passage in 1848.[105] Various people have reported seeing the ghost, including W. J. MacQueen-Pope, who described its usual path as starting at the end of the fourth row in the upper circle and then proceeding via the rear gangway to the wall near the royal box, where the remains were found.[106]


The ghosts of actor Charles Macklin and clown Joseph Grimaldi are also supposed to haunt the theatre. Macklin appears backstage, wandering the corridor which now stands in the spot where, in 1735, he killed fellow actor Thomas Hallam in an argument over a wig ("Goddamn you for a blackguard, scrub, rascal!" he shouted, thrusting a cane into Hallam's face and piercing his left eye).[107] Grimaldi is reported to be a helpful apparition, purportedly guiding nervous actors skillfully about the stage on more than one occasion. The comedian Stanley Lupino said he had seen the ghost of Dan Leno in a dressing room.[108]

European Route of Historic Theatres

Rose Theatre

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ISBN

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Nell Gwyn: Mistress to a King

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Performance and Politics in Popular Drama

Dobbs, Brian (1972). Drury Lane: Three Centuries of the Theatre Royal, 1663–1971. Cassell.

Earl, John; Sell, Michael (2000). Guide to British Theatres 1750–1950. Theatres Trust. pp. 107–8.  978-0-7136-5688-6.

ISBN

Faul, Michel (2006). Louis Jullien: musique, spectacle et folie au XIXe siècle (in French). Atlantica.  978-2-35165-038-7.

ISBN

Greenfield, Anne Leah, ed. (2015). Interpreting Sexual Violence, 1660–1800. Routledge.  978-1-317-31884-2.

ISBN

Hartnoll, Phyllis, ed. (1983). (4th ed.). London: Oxford University Press. pp. 230–232. ISBN 978-0-19-211546-1.

The Oxford Companion to the Theatre

Hischak, Thomas S. (2007). . Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-313-34140-3.

The Rodgers and Hammerstein Encyclopedia

Hume, Robert D. (1976). (1990 ed.). Clarendon Press. ISBN 978-0-19-811799-5.

The Development of English Drama in the Late Seventeenth Century

Kliman, Bernice W. (2008). Tragedy of Hamlet of Denmark. Indiana: Focus Publishing.  978-1-58510-513-7.

ISBN

Leacroft, Richard (1973). . Cornell University Press. ISBN 978-0-8014-0750-5.

The Development of the English Playhouse

Mackintosh, Iain (1993). Architecture, Actor and Audience. Routledge UK.  978-0-415-03183-7.

ISBN

McConnell Stott, Andrew (2009). The Pantomime Life of Joseph Grimaldi. Edinburgh: Canongate Books.  978-1-84767-761-7.

ISBN

(1945). Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. W. H. Allen & Co.

MacQueen-Pope, Walter

Milhous, Judith (1979). . Carbondale, Illinois: Southern Illinois University Press. ISBN 978-0-8093-0906-1.

Thomas Betterton and the Management of Lincoln's Inn Fields 1695–1708

Nagler, Alois M. (1959). . Courier Dover. ISBN 978-0-486-20515-1.

A Source Book in Theatrical History

Smith, John Harrington (1948). The Gay Couple in Restoration Comedy. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Spiers, Rupert (2002). . Archived from the original on 1 September 2008. Retrieved 2 March 2014.

"Restoration Theatre"

Stone, George Winchester; Kahrl, George M. (1979). . Carbondale, Illinois: Southern Illinois University Press. ISBN 978-0-8093-0931-3.

David Garrick: A Critical Biography

Thomson, Peter (1995). . In Banham, Martin (ed.). The Cambridge Guide to Theatre. Cambridge University Press. pp. 309–311. ISBN 978-0-521-43437-9.

"Drury Lane, Theatre Royal"

Underwood, Peter (2013). "Theatre Royal, Drury Lane". Haunted London. Amberley. pp. 55–61.  978-1-4456-2859-2.

ISBN

Official website

. New International Encyclopedia. 1905.

"Drury Lane Theatre"