Nicholas Rowe was an English dramatist, poet and miscellaneous writer who was appointed Poet Laureate in 1715. His plays and poems were well-received during his lifetime, with one of his translations described as one of the greatest productions in English poetry. He was also considered the first editor of the works of William Shakespeare.
Anne Oldfield was an English actress and one of the highest paid actresses of her time.
Barton Booth was one of the most famous dramatic actors of the first part of the 18th century.
Anne Bracegirdle was an English actress.
Robert Wilks was a British actor and theatrical manager who was one of the leading managers of Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in its heyday of the 1710s. He was, with Colley Cibber and Thomas Doggett, one of the "triumvirate" of actor-managers that was denounced by Alexander Pope and caricatured by William Hogarth as leaders of the decline in theatrical standards and degradation of the stage's literary tradition.
The Fair Penitent is Nicholas Rowe's stage adaptation of the tragedy The Fatal Dowry, the Philip Massinger and Nathan Field collaboration first published in 1632. Rowe's adaptation, premiered onstage in 1702 and first published in 1703, was a great popular success through much of the 18th century, and was praised by critics as demanding as Samuel Johnson.
Ulysses is a 1705 tragedy by the British writer Nicholas Rowe. Rowe turned back to writing tragedies following his unsuccessful comedy The Biter of the previous year. The cast included Thomas Betterton as Ulysses, Barton Booth as Telemachus, Elizabeth Barry as Penelope and Anne Bracegirdle as Semanthe. Many of the actors also appeared in Rowe's following work The Royal Convert.
The Royal Convert is a 1707 tragedy by the British writer Nicholas Rowe. The play is set in England during the Saxon era featuring two brothers in a love triangle with a young Christian woman.
The Platonick Lady is a 1706 comedy play by the British writer Susanna Centlivre. Staged at the Queen's Theatre in the Haymarket in November 1706, it was published the following year and is sometimes dated as 1707. In the play's prologue the author defended the right of woman to write plays. The plot revolves around the question of platonic friendship.
The What D'Ye Call It is a 1715 farce by the British writer John Gay. It was written as a parody of tragic plays, with particular reference to Thomas Otway's Venice Preserv'd.
The Generous Conqueror is a 1701 tragedy by the English writer Bevil Higgons. It was published in January the following year, and is sometimes dated 1702 by this. Higgons was a well-known Jacobite who had been implicated in the 1696 Jacobite assassination plot against William III. In this play he effectively called for the peaceful succession of the pretender to the throne as James III.
The Dissembled Wanton is a 1726 comedy play by the British writer Leonard Welsted.
John Bowman (1651–1739) was a British stage actor. He began his career in the Duke's Company at the Dorset Garden Theatre. In 1692, he married Elizabeth Watson, who acted under the name Elizabeth Bowman. He later switched to act at the Drury Lane Theatre. He is also referred to as John Boman.
The Virgin Queen is a 1728 tragedy by the British writer Richard Barford.
The Stolen Heiress or, The Salamanca Doctor Outplotted is a 1702 comedy play by the English writer Susanna Centlivre.
Adventures in Madrid or The Adventures in Madrid is a 1706 comedy by the English writer Mary Pix. It was her final staged work.
The Double Gallant, or the Sick Lady's Cure is a 1707 comedy play by the British writer Colley Cibber.
Elizabeth Bowman was an English stage actress of the seventeenth and early eighteenth century. The daughter of Sir Francis Watson, 1st Baronet she was adopted by the actor manager Thomas Betterton. In 1692, she married John Bowman and began acting at Drury Lane the following year as Mrs Bowman. She was a member of the United Company until 1695 then joined Betterton's breakaway at the Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre.
Tamerlane is a 1701 history play by the English writer Nicholas Rowe. A tragedy, it portrays the life of the Timur, the fourteenth century conqueror and founder of the Timurid Empire. Rowe, a staunch Whig, used the historical story as an allegory for the life of William III who resembles his portrayal of Tamerlane while his opponent the Ottoman leader Bayezid I was equivalent to William's longstanding opponent Louis XIV of France. An earlier version of the story Tamburlaine was written by Christopher Marlowe during the Elizabethan era with a very different focus in the context of the English Renaissance.
The Tragedy of Jane Shore is a 1714 historical tragedy by the British writer Nicholas Rowe. It was his penultimate play, and was inspired by the life of Jane Shore the mistress of Edward IV.
