The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane is a West End theatre in Covent Garden, in the City of Westminster, a borough of London. The building faces Catherine Street (earlier named Bridges or Brydges Street) and backs onto Drury Lane. The building standing today is the most recent in a line of four theatres at the same location dating back to 1663, making it the oldest London theatre. [1] For its first two centuries, Drury Lane could "reasonably have claimed to be London's leading theatre" [2] and thus one of the most important theatres in the English-speaking world. Through most of that time, it was one of a small handful of patent theatres that were granted monopoly rights to the production of "legitimate" (meaning spoken plays, rather than opera, dance, concerts, or plays with music) [3] drama in London. The first theatre on the location was built at the behest of Thomas Killigrew in the early years of the English Restoration. Actors appearing at this "Theatre Royal in Bridges Street" included Nell Gwyn and Charles Hart. It was destroyed by fire in 1672. Killigrew built a larger theatre in the same spot, designed by Christopher Wren; renamed the "Theatre Royal in Drury Lane," it opened in 1674. This building lasted nearly 120 years, under leadership including Colley Cibber, David Garrick, and Richard Brinsley Sheridan. In 1791, under Sheridan's management, the building was demolished to make way for a larger theatre which opened in 1794. This enormous new Drury Lane survived just 15 years, burning down in 1809. The building that stands today opened in 1812. It has been home to actors as diverse as Shakespearean Edmund Kean, comedian Dan Leno, comedy troupe Monty Python (who recorded a concert album there), and musical composer and performer Ivor Novello. Today, the theatre is owned by composer Andrew Lloyd Webber and generally stages popular musical theatre. It is a Grade I listed building.

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First theatre: 1663

After the eleven year long Puritan Interregnum, which had seen the banning of pastimes regarded as frivolous, such as theatre, the English monarchy was restored to the throne with the return of Charles II in 1660. Soon after, Charles issued Letters Patent to two parties licensing the formation of new acting companies. One of these went to Thomas Killigrew, whose company became known as the King's Company, and who built a new theatre in Drury Lane. The Letters Patent also granted the two companies a shared monopoly on the public performance of legitimate drama in London; this monopoly was challenged in the 18th century by new venues and by a certain slipperiness in the definition of "legitimate drama," but remained legally in place until 1843. The new playhouse, architect unknown, opened on 7 May 1663 and was known from the placement of the entrance as the "Theatre Royal in Bridges Street." ^[4] It went by other names as well, including the "King's Playhouse." The building was a three-tiered wooden structure, 112 feet long and wide; it could hold an audience of 700. ^[5] Set well back from the broader streets, the theatre was accessed by narrow passages between surrounding buildings. ^[6]

The King himself was a not infrequent attendee of the theatre's productions, as was Samuel Pepys, whose private diaries provide much of what we know of London theatre-going in the 1660s. The day after the Theatre Royal opened, Pepys attended a performance of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher's The Humorous Lieutenant . He has this to say in his diary:

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Performances usually began at 3 p.m. to take advantage of the daylight: the main floor for the audience, the pit, had no roof in order to let in the light. A glazed dome was built over the opening, but judging from another one of Pepys' diary entries, the dome was not entirely effective at keeping out the elements: he and his wife were forced to leave the theatre to take refuge from a hail storm. ^[8]

Green baize cloth covered the benches in the pit and served to decorate the boxes, additionally ornamented with gold-tooled leather, and even the stage itself. ^[9] The backless green benches in the pit were in a semicircular arrangement facing the stage, according to a May 1663 letter from one Monsieur de Maonconys: "All benches of the pit, where people of rank also sit, are shaped in a semi-circle, each row higher than the next." ^[10] The three galleries formed a semicircle around the floor seats; both the first and second galleries were divided up into boxes.

The King's Company was forced with some reluctance to commission the technically advanced and expensive Theatre Royal playhouse by the success of the rival Duke's Company, which was drawing fascinated crowds with their "moveable" or "changeable" scenery and visually gorgeous productions at Lincoln's Inn Fields. Imitating the innovations at Lincoln's Inn Fields, the Theatre Royal also featured moveable scenery with wings or shutters that could be smoothly changed between or even within acts. When not in use, the shutters rested out of sight behind the sides of the proscenium arch, which also served as a visual frame for the on-stage happenings. The picture-frame-like separation between audience and performance was a new phenomenon in English theatre, though it had been found on the Continent earlier. However, theatre design in London remained ambivalent about the merits of the "picture-box" stage, and for many decades to come, London theatres including Drury Lane had large forestages protruding beyond the arch, often including the thrust stages found in the Elizabethan theatres. The players could still step forward and bridge the distance between performer and audience, and in addition, it was not unusual for audience members to mount the stage itself.

Killigrew's investment in the new playhouse put the two companies on a level as far as technical resources were concerned, but the offerings at the Theatre Royal nevertheless continued to be dominated by actor-driven "talk" drama, contrasting with William Davenant's baroque spectacles and operas at Lincoln's Inn Fields. ^[11] Internal power structures were the main reason for this difference: while Davenant skilfully commanded a docile young troupe, Killigrew's authority over his veteran actors was far from absolute. ^[12] Experienced actors Michael Mohun (who Pepys called "the best actor in the world") and Charles Hart held out for shares and good contracts in the King's Company, and they despised baroque spectacle. Such a division of power between the patentee Killigrew and his chief actors led to frequent conflicts. These were bad for the Theatre Royal as a business venture; but on the other hand, its strong and confident actors and their insistence on dialogue and literary quality over ornament and visual effects were good for the rebirth of English drama. It was mostly at struggling Theatre Royal, rather than at efficiently run Lincoln's Inn Fields, that the plays were acted that are classics today. This applies especially to the new form Restoration comedy, dominated in the 1660s by William Wycherley and the Theatre Royal's house dramatist John Dryden. Actors such as Hart and Charles II's mistress Nell Gwyn developed and refined the famous scenes of repartee, banter, and flirtation in Dryden's and Wycherley's comedies, and these actors made a creative contribution which John Harrington Smith has claimed was almost on a level with that of the dramatists. Another factor in the direction the drama took at this time was the appearance of actresses for the first time on the British stage. Their presence encouraged playwrights to focus on outspoken female characters, daring love scenes, and provocative breeches roles.

The Great Plague of London struck in the summer of 1665, and the Theatre Royal, along with all other public entertainment, was shut down by order of the Crown on 5 June. It remained closed for 18 months until the autumn of 1666, during which time it received at least a little interior renovation, including widening of the stage. ^[13] Located well to the west of the City boundary, the theatre was unaffected by he Great Fire of London, which raged through the City in September 1666, it burned down six years later on 25 January 1672.

Second theatre: 1674

The King's Company never recovered financially from the loss of the theatre in Bridges Street. The competitive pressure from the Duke's Company forced them to keep investing, however, and construction work began immediately on an even larger and more luxurious theatre which housed an audience of 2,000. This was the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane, designed by Christopher Wren, ^[14] which opened on 26 March 1674. The new house was financed through selling more company shares, which meant that yet more money had now to be made from ticket sales.

The second theatre complex was composed of the large auditorium by Wren and, by the time of Garrick's management, comprised ten connected structures. These buildings contained a warren of offices, practice rooms, storage space and dressing rooms used by the theatre management and performers, nearly seventy people total, as well as some fifty technical staff members. ^[15] Additionally three rooms were provided for scripts, including a library for their storage, a separate room for copying actor's parts and a special library for the theatre's account books, ledger books and music scores. This jumble of rooms often made communication among various departments difficult, a problem that David Garrick corrected during his tenure as manager. The entire complex occupied 13,134 square feet bounded by Drury Lane (east), Brydges Street (west), Great Russell Street (north) and Little Russell Street (south). ^[16]

Entering the theatre from Drury Lane, theatre-goers navigated narrow passages that led under over-hanging apartments to entrances for the various lobbies; one for each of the three main sections of the theatre: the pit, gallery and boxes. The new theatre interior retained the green cloth of the first, but seems to have been built according to a more rectilinear plan. Henri Misson, a visitor from France, offers a description of the theatre in 1698:

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As Misson points out, the seating was divided by class, and tickets were priced accordingly. Box seats, used by the nobility and wealthy gentry, cost 5 shillings; the benches in the pit which often sat some gentry, but also critics and scholars, cost 3 shillings; tradesmen and professionals occupied the first gallery with seats costing 2 shillings, while servants and other "ordinary people," as Misson refers to them, occupied the 1 shilling seats of the upper gallery. Seats were not numbered and offered on a "first come first served" basis, leading many members of the gentry to send servants to reserve seats well ahead of performances. ^[18]

The image to the right shows a cross-section of a playhouse drawn by Wren, and is thought to be a plan for the 1674 Theatre Royal. The second Amphitheatre mentioned by Misson, in the rear, is the lower gallery.

All of these spectators had a clear view of the stage. The stage was wide and deep with a raked floor from the footlights to the backdrop. The angle of the rake rose one inch for every of horizontal stage, therefore an actor standing at the back of the stage was above an actor at the footlights. The stage floor included grooves for wings and flats in addition to trap doors in the floor. The proscenium arch covered the stage equipment above the stage that included a pair of girondels—large wheels holding many candles used to counteract the light from the footlights. Towards the latter part of the 18th century, doors were placed on either side of the stage, and a series of small spikes traced the edge of the stage apron to prevent audiences from climbing onto the stage. At the very back of the stage, a large door was placed that opened to reveal Drury Lane. ^[19]

An added difficulty for Killigrew and his sons Thomas and Charles was the political unrest of 1678–1684 with the Popish Plot and the Exclusion Bill crisis distracting potential audiences from things theatrical. This affected both the King's and the Duke's companies, but most of all the King's which had no profit margin to carry them through the lean years. In 1682 the companies merged, or rather, the King's was absorbed by the Duke's. Led at the time by Thomas Betterton, the United Company, as it was now called, chose Drury Lane as their production house, leaving the Duke's Company's theatre in Dorset Garden closed for a time. In 1688 Betterton was removed from managerial control by Alexander Davenant, son of William Davenant, the original patent holder for the Duke's Company. Davenant's management (with Charles Killigrew) proved brief and disastrous, and by 1693 he was fleeing to the Canary Islands in the wake of embezzlement charges. The Theatre Royal found itself in the hands of lawyer Christopher Rich for the next 16 years. ^[20]

Neither Davenant's nor Killigrew's sons were much better than crooks, ^[21] and Rich attempted to recoup their depredations of the company's resources by cost-cutting tyranny, pitting actor against actor and slashing salaries. By 1695 the actors, including day-to-day manager and acting legend Thomas Betterton, were alienated and humiliated enough to walk out and set up a cooperative company of their own. Nine men and six women departed, all of them established professional performers, including such draws as tragedienne Elizabeth Barry and comedienne Anne Bracegirdle, leaving the United Company — henceforth known as the "Patent Company" — in "a very despicable condition," according to an anonymous contemporary pamphlet:

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A private letter from 19 November 1696 reported that Drury Lane "has no company at all, and unless a new play comes out on Saturday revives their reputation, they must break." ^[23] The new play, Rich's last hope, is assumed to have been John Vanbrugh's The Relapse , and it turned out the success the company needed. Christopher Rich continued as its head until 1709, when the patent in question was actually revoked amid a complex tangle of political machinations. A lawyer named William Collier was briefly given the right to mount productions in Drury Lane, but by 1710 the troupe was in the hands of the actors Colley Cibber, Robert Wilks, and Thomas Doggett — a triumvirate that eventually found themselves sharply satirised in Alexander Pope's Dunciad . In 1713 Barton Booth replaced Doggett.

Cibber was the de facto leader of the triumvirate, and he led the theatre through a controversial but generally successful period until 1733, when he sold his controlling interest to John Highmore. It is likely that the sale was at a vastly inflated price and that Colley's goal was simply to get out of debts and make a profit (see Robert Lowe in his edition of Cibber's Apology ). Members of the troupe at the time were most displeased; an actor's revolt was organised and executed; Charles Fleetwood came to control the theatre. Fleetwood's tenure was tumultuous; his abolition of the practice of allowing footmen free access to the upper gallery led to riots in 1737, and Fleetwood's gambling problems entangled the theatre in his own financial difficulties. ^[24] It was during this period that actor Charles Macklin rose to fame, propelled by a singular performance as Shylock in an early 1741 production of The Merchant of Venice , in which he introduced a realistic, naturalistic style of acting, abandoning the artificial bombast typical to dramatic roles prior. ^[24]

In 1747 Fleetwood's playhouse patent expired. The theatre and a patent renewal were purchased by actor David Garrick (who had trained under Macklin earlier) and partner James Lacy. Garrick served as manager and lead actor of the theatre until roughly 1766, and continued on in the management role for another ten years after that. He is remembered as one of the great stage actors and is especially associated with advancing the Shakespearean tradition in English theatre — during his time at Drury Lane, the company mounted at least 24 of Shakespeare's plays. ^[26] Some of Shakespeare's surge in popularity during this period can be traced to the Licensing Act of 1737, which mandated governmental approval of any play before it could be performed and thereby created something of a vacuum of new material to perform. Garrick shared the stage with company including Peg Woffington, Susannah Cibber, Hannah Pritchard, Kitty Clive, Spranger Barry, Richard Yates and Ned Shuter. It was under Garrick's management that spectators were for the first time barred from the stage itself. ^[27]

Garrick commissioned Robert Adam and his brother James to renovate the theatre's interior, which they did in 1775. Their additions included an ornate ceiling and a stucco facade facing Bridges Street. This facade was the first time any structure that might be considered part of the theatre proper actually abutted the street: the building, like the 1663 original, had been built in the centre of the block, hemmed in by other structures. The narrow passage from Bridges street to the theatre now became an interior hallway; some theatre office space also went up behind the new facade. ^[28]

With a series of farewell performances, Garrick left the stage in 1776 and sold his shares in the theatre to the Irish playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan. Sheridan and his partners completed their purchase of Drury Lane two years later, and Sheridan owned it until 1809. ^[29] Sheridan premiered his own comedy of manners The School for Scandal in 1777. Active management of the theatre was carried out by a number of parties during Sheridan's ownership, including himself, his father Thomas, and, from 1788 to 1796 and 1800 to 1802, the popular actor John Philip Kemble. ^[30]

Third theatre: 1794

The theatre was in need of updating by the end of the 18th century and was demolished in 1791, with the company moving temporarily to the new King's Theatre, in the Haymarket. A third theatre was designed by Henry Holland and opened on 12 March 1794. This was a cavernous theatre, accommodating more than 3,600 spectators. ^[31] The motivation behind building on such a large scale? In the words of one owner:

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New technology facilitated the expansion: iron columns replaced bulky wood, supporting five tiers of galleries. The stage was large, too: wide and deep. Holland, the architect, said it was "on a larger scale than any other theatre in Europe." Except for churches, it was the tallest building in London. ^[32]

The "very popular notion that our theatres ought to be very small" proved hard to overcome, however. Various accounts from the period bemoan the mammoth size of the new theatre, longing for the "warm close observant seats of Old Drury," as one May 1794 theatre-goer put it. ^[34] Actress Sarah Siddons, then part of the Drury Lane company, called it "a wilderness of a place" (and left Drury Lane along with her brother John Philip Kemble in 1803). Not only was any sense of intimacy and connection to the company on stage lost, but the very size of the theatre put a great deal of the audience at such a distance from the stage so as to make hearing a player's voice quite difficult. To compensate, the productions mounted in the new theatre tended more toward spectacle than the spoken word. ^[32] An example of such a spectacle is a 1794 production that featured real water flowing down a rocky stream into a lake large enough on which to row a boat. This water issued from tanks in the attics above the house, which were installed — along with a much-touted iron safety curtain — as proof against fire. ^[36]

Richard Sheridan continued as theatre owner during the entire lifetime of this third building. He had grown in stature as a statesman during this time, but troubled finances were to be his undoing. The 1794 rebuilding had cost double the original estimate of £80,000, and Sheridan bore the entirety of the debt. Productions were more expensive to mount in the larger structure, and increased audience revenues failed to make up the difference. ^[37]

An assassination attempt against King George III took place at the theatre on 15 May 1800. James Hadfield fired two pistol shots from the pit toward the King, sitting in the royal box. The shots missed by inches, Hadfield was quickly subdued, and George, apparently unruffled, ordered the performance to continue. ^[38]

On 24 February 1809, despite the previously mentioned fire safety precautions, the theatre burned down. On being encountered drinking a glass of wine in the street while watching the fire, Sheridan was famously reported to have said: "A man may surely be allowed to take a glass of wine by his own fireside." ^[39] Already on the shakiest financial ground, Sheridan was ruined entirely by the loss of the building. He turned to brewer Samuel Whitbread, an old friend, for help. Whitbread agreed to head a committee that would manage the company and oversee the rebuilding of the theatre, but asked Sheridan to withdraw from management himself, which he did entirely by 1811. ^[40]