Mary Knep (died 1681), also Knepp, Nepp, Knip, or Knipp, was an English actress and one of the first generation of female performers to appear on the public stage during the Restoration era. [1]
Knep was primarily a singer and dancer, but "developed into a first-rate actress". [2] She began her career with the King's Company, which was under the management of Thomas Killigrew.
She made her debut in the title role of Jonson's Epicene on 1 June 1664. Before this, she had been cast as Lucetta in Killigrew's 1664 planned production of his Thomaso , with an all-female cast, but this had been cancelled before completion.
Knep played major and minor roles in a range of productions of the 1660s and 1670s, including:
In addition to playing these and other parts, Knep also sang and danced in plays and spoke Prologues and Epilogues.
She never achieved the same fame as her younger contemporary Nell Gwyn; in 1672 Knep secured the lead female role in The Assignation , but the play was a flop.
Knep was reportedly "the wife of a Smithfield horsedealer, and the mistress of Pepys" — or at least (according to Cunningham) "she granted him a share of her favours". [3] Scholars disagree on the full extent of the Pepys/Knep relationship; but much of what we know about Knep comes from Samuel Pepys' famous private diary.
Pepys first met Knep on 6 December 1665; he described her as "pretty enough, but the most excellent, mad-humoured thing, and sings the noblest that I ever heard in my life." He called her husband "an ill, melancholy, jealous-looking fellow" [4] and suspected him of abusing her. Knep provided Pepys with backstage access, and was a conduit for theatrical and social gossip. When they wrote notes to each other, Pepys signed himself "Dapper Dickey," while Knep was "Barbary Allen" (a popular song that was an item in her musical repertory).
She may have been a mistress of Sir Charles Sedley, [5] and in the late 1670s she became the mistress of actor Joseph Haines.
Knep had at least one child, a son born in June 1666. She died in childbirth in 1681.
Samuel Pepys was an English diarist and naval administrator. He served as administrator of the Royal Navy and Member of Parliament and is most famous for the diary he kept for a decade. Pepys had no maritime experience, but he rose to be the Chief Secretary to the Admiralty under both King Charles II and King James II through patronage, diligence, and his talent for administration. His influence and reforms at the Admiralty were important in the early professionalisation of the Royal Navy.
Eleanor Gwyn was an English stage actress and celebrity figure of the Restoration period. Praised by Samuel Pepys for her comic performances as one of the first actresses on the English stage, she became best known for being a long-time mistress of King Charles II of England.
Elizabeth Boutell, was a British actress.
Charles Hart was a prominent British Restoration actor.
Elizabeth Knepp or Knipp was a British actress, singer, and dancer. The earliest theatrical reference to Knepp is from 1664, as being intended by Thomas Killigrew to play the part of Lusetta in his play Thomaso. This means that she was probably in his troupe, the King's Company, by that time. From 1666 onwards she is recorded as playing many parts, both tragic and comic, including Lady Fidget in William Wycherley's The Country Wife. In 1664, she became the first woman to perform the title role in Jonson's Epicoene. She also occasionally spoke prologues and epilogues, and often danced and sang in or between acts.
An Evening's Love, or The Mock Astrologer is a comedy in prose by John Dryden. It was first performed before Charles II and Queen Catherine by the King's Company at the Theatre Royal on Bridges Street, London, on Friday, 12 June 1668. Samuel Pepys saw the play on 20 June of that year, but didn't like it; in his Diary he called it "very smutty."
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Thomaso, or the Wanderer is mid-seventeenth-century stage play, a two-part comedy written by Thomas Killigrew, The work was composed in Madrid, c. 1654. Thomaso is based on Killigrew's personal experiences as a Royalist exile during the era of the Commonwealth, when he was abroad continuously from 1647 to 1660.
Secret Love, or The Maiden Queen is a 1667 tragicomedy written by John Dryden. The play, commonly known by its more distinctive subtitle, was acted by the King's Company at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. The premiere occurred on 2 March, and was a popular success. King Charles II, his brother the Duke of York and future King James II, and Samuel Pepys were all in the audience on opening night.
Anne Marshall, also Mrs. Anne Quin, was a leading English actress of the Restoration era, one of the first generation of women performers to appear on the public stage in England.
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John Young was an English stage actor of the seventeenth century. He was active as a member of the Duke's Company during the Restoration Era, appearing at Lincoln's Inn Fields and then at the Dorset Garden Theatre when the company relocated. While not much is known about his background, he was repeatedly in debt during his acting career. In 1667 he stood in for Thomas Betterton after he fell ill during the run of Macbeth appearing as the title role. Samuel Pepys described him as "a bad actor at best".
Henry Harris was an English stage actor and theatre manager. Initially a painter he was a founder member of the new Duke's Company in 1660 following the Restoration which established itself at the old Salisbury Court Theatre before moving to the new Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre shortly afterwards. Due to his background Harris may have been a set designer and painter during his early years with the company. However, by 1661 he was acting, and his first recorded role was in William Davenant's The Siege of Rhodes that summer. He quickly established himself as the second actor in the troupe after Thomas Betterton.