Advertising
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The voluminous amount of information available today concerning
the programs offered by the Drury Lane and Covent Garden theatres and
the individuals who took part in them arises chiefly from the fact that
the managers advertised continuously in tire newspapers
tlris practice,
lrowever, was followed only irregularly by the promoters at tire smaller
houses, especially after the Licensing Act. On the other lrand, if it were
not for the information appearing in tire papers concerning the snrallcf
theatres, we would know next to notlring about tire activities of these
places of entertainment or even that such existed. Established theatres,
with a long record of continuity, with careful treasurers and prompter
and with historically minded managers like Kemble, accumulated and
preserved their records. But smaller companies, even tlrouglr effectively
organized and led by a competent director, had no permanent place far
a repository; and such account books as were undoubtedly kept are ٢١٥
longer extant.
Some companies entered advertisements of performances regular')'’
and occasionally specified for the reader which newspapers would carry
their official notices. Thus, when crowded audiences greeted the opening
performances of Theophilus Cibber’s revival of Romeo and Juliet at th.
New• Ha
Cibber notified
؛
public that "the Plays [
be advertised in th
daily Post, .the Daily Advertiser, and tire Gene;::
Advertiser. . . . Tire large Play Bills and Hand Play Bills will be postix
and delivered out on the days of Performance only” (Daily Advertiser’
6 October).
In fact, by the early 1730’s, Londoners had to coirsult two, and
sometimes three, papers to learn the offerings at all the playlrouses.
January 1730, for example, the Drury Lane notices appeared in tire
ت
Post and Daily
Courant-,
the Haymarket advertised in the Daily Post only
opera
Lincoln’s Inn Fields and Goodman’s Fields bills appear
،
in botlr the Daily
Courant
and Daily Journal, rvith benefit notices for a
houses being carried in various weekly and bi-weekly papers. In
the Daily Advertiser began to carry bills for the opera house and eventually