News
Published on 02 April 2026
Welcome back, theater history fans, to another #theaterthursday!
Today we’re talking about the one, the only William Shakespeare. Love him or hate him, the Bard’s lasting influence and popularity are undeniable. In his own time, though, he was just one of many respected and successful playwrights. In fact — as a writer for The Economist used the London Stage Database to show — our modern sense of Shakespeare’s unique “greatness” arose over the course of the eighteenth century, with plenty of help from promoters like actor-manager David Garrick and the Shakespeare Ladies Club. By the end of the century, his reputation was cemented — and, for a certain kind of unsavory character, temptingly profitable.
William Henry Ireland
The year is 1796; the day, Saturday April 2nd, and Drury Lane Theatre is putting on a one-of-a-kind show — thanks to a man by the name of William Henry Ireland. Ireland garnered attention when he “rediscovered”... Read More
Published on 26 March 2026
A Notice to Fans of the London Stage Blog:
Last time of posting ’till Easter Holidays!
For this #theaterthursday, we bring to you the event of March 26th, 1768, wherein Covent Garden Theatre advertised that the show that night would be their “Last time of performing till Easter Holidays.”
Covent Garden was not alone in their planned repose. It was, in fact, tradition for public playhouses to close in observation of Holy Week during the week leading up to Easter. We here at the London Stage will be following suit and taking it easy this Thursday; for, while the show must go on, everyone needs a break now and then.
So, without further ado, goodbye and see you next week when we’ll be returning to our usual #theaterthursday posting!
Published on 19 March 2026
MOST exciting news fans of the London Stage: on this very day, 1675, Nell Gwyn (that’s right, THE Nell Gwyn) attended a performance by the Duke’s Company at Dorset Garden Theatre! How lucky for the rest of the audience, sharing space with Nell Gwyn!!!
Wait— did someone just ask “who’s Nell Gwyn?”
A 17th-Century Starlet
Nell Gwyn by Simon Verelst oil on canvas, feigned oval, circa 1680. Licensed from National Portrait Gallery, London, under a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 3.0 License
Like modern times, the Restoration era had its fair share of celebrities. Certain actors and actresses reached the level of fame wherein their personal lives became the subject of public interest and spectacle. For this #theaterthursday, allow us to introduce you to one such celebrity: Eleanor (“Nell”) Gwyn.
To begin, allow us to call your attention back to our previous blog post about Orange-Women. Remember those fruit vendors of Restoration playhouses? Well, in Cinderella-like fashion,... Read More
Published on 18 March 2026
Earlier this week, I sat down for an interview with Evan Watson, an investigative reporter at KGW-8 (NBC Portland) who has been into the impacts of NEH cuts on humanities projects in Oregon. His piece ran on the evening news yesterday:
A longer article went online this morning, as well:
Evan Wilson for KGW news: DOGE used ChatGPT to cut humanities grants, affecting Oregon researchers and museums
Huge thanks to Molly Blancett and Angela Seydel from the University Communications office for their help coordinating interview logistics, and to Professor Julie Weise from History, who sent Evan my way for this story — and who has also been doing an enormous amount of work to connect the people affected by these terminations with one another and to identify avenues for education and advocacy.
Also, I have to say this: I totally understand it’s useful shorthand to say that I “created” the London Stage... Read More
Published on 12 March 2026
The theatrical season of 1762-1763 was a fraught one for the London stage. In January, management at both of the main public playhouses moved to abolish a longstanding practice of selling half-priced tickets to those arriving after the start of the mainpiece’s third act. Audiences protested the change and their ultimately successful efforts became known as the “Half-Price Riots.”
According to Heather McPherson, “[t]he 1763 Half-Price Riots at Drury Lane and Covent Garden illustrate the precariousness of the social contract between management and the public.”
But the attempted change in ticket pricing was not the only managerial attempt at altering audiences’ relationship with the stage that the 1762-1763 season saw…
Riot at Covent Garden Theatre, in 1763. Print made by: Anonymous © The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license.
On this very day of March 12, 1763, The Public Advertiser published the following notice:
“As... Read More
Published on 10 March 2026
Over the weekend, the New York Times ran an article by Jennifer Schuessler with the headline “When DOGE Unleashed ChatGPT on the Humanities” (gift link). The piece covers the latest findings from the discovery phase in an ongoing lawsuit filed by scholarly and professional organizations challenging the mass termination of NEH grants — including one to our team — last spring.
The grant termination letter, an exact copy of those received by thousands of other NEH grantees at the same time, notified us that our project “no longer effectuates agency priorities.” (Image created using CanvaAI.)
Among the many revealing findings were spreadsheets DOGE staffers created by feeding grant descriptions from the NEH’s public website into a chatbot with the prompt: “Does the following relate at all to D.E.I.? Respond factually in less than 120 characters.” Evidently, any project that focused on the history, language, culture, or experiences of any group other than white men... Read More