"Playhouse" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... large white fruz, that she may look sparkishly in the forefront of the King's box at an old play.' In Tom Brown's Letters from the Dead to the Living[1] we have one from Julian, 'late Secretary to the Muses,' to Will. Pierre of Lincoln's Inn Fields Playhouse, wherein, recalling how in his lampoons whilst he lived characters about town were shown in no very enviable light, he particularizes that 'the antiquated Coquet was told of her age and ugliness, tho' her vanity plac'd her in the first row in the ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... Abroad with my wife, the first time that ever I rode in my own coach, which do make my heart rejoice and praise God. So she and I to the king's playhouse, and there saw "The Usurper," a pretty good play. Then we to White Hall; where my wife stayed while I up to the duchess, to speak with the Duke of York; and here saw all the ladies, and heard the silly discourse of the king ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... length! But this is not a book of history; all we want to know is how to build shacks for our own use; so we will borrow one from the communal home of the Iroquois. It is not necessary for us to make this one hundred feet long, as the Iroquois Indians did. We can make a diminutive one as a playhouse for our children, a moderate-sized one as a camp for our Boy Scouts, or a good-sized one for a party ...
— Shelters, Shacks and Shanties • D.C. Beard
... apparently of the theatre, where she had already made her debut on the stage of the playhouse in Smock Alley (Orange Street), Dublin during the season of 1715, as Chloe in "Timon of Athens; or, the Man-Hater."[7] One scans the dramatis personae of "Timon" in vain for the character of Chloe, until one ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher
... gentleman, in his deepest bass voice, which sounded like the rumble of thunder over the hills and far away, "but I promised I would go over and play a game of checkers with Uncle Wiggily Longears. He has just finished the playhouse for Sammie and Susie, and he wants to show me that. So I don't see how I can go to the ...
— Bully and Bawly No-Tail • Howard R. Garis
... vital truth being a very essential part of me, must go with me to the playhouse, rehearsals, and performances, and all the intermediate time of various occupations, so that it is not my "veneration" which is shocked at the superficial mode in which I have handled these themes, while writing of them to you, but my "conscientiousness," ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... you know what's behind it." Bernard Sobel, Daily Mirror. "Double Door is a thriller of a new kind, beautifully written, superbly played, clean as a whistle, and arousing in its spectators a tenseness of interest I have rarely seen equaled in a playhouse." E. Jordan, America. Leading part acted by Mary Morris in America and by Sybil Thorndike in London. A play that will challenge the best acting talent of ...
— Why the Chimes Rang: A Play in One Act • Elizabeth Apthorp McFadden
... he, "is enough for me to see after; and I took it for granted it was the same thing here as at the playhouse." ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... sitting on little chairs in a big circle playing kindergarten games. The children were dressed in neat pretty frocks such as any beloved children would wear, with bright hair ribbons and neckties, and each with an individuality of its own. The room was sunny and bright, with a great playhouse at one end, with real windows and furniture in it and all sorts of toboggan slides and swings and kiddy cars and everything to delight the soul of a child. On a wide space between two windows painted on the plaster in soft wonderful ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... first American piano was built here in 1775; here in 1789 the Protestant Episcopal Church was formally established in the United States; the first carriage in the world propelled by steam was built here in 1804; the oldest American playhouse now in existence was built here in 1808; the first American locomotive, "Ironsides", was built here in 1827; and the first daguerreotype of the human face was made here in 1839. The Bible and Testament, Shakespeare, Milton and Blackstone were printed for the first time in America ...
— The Colonial Architecture of Philadelphia • Frank Cousins
... for a girl's playhouse, on Public Square—this playhouse may be given as first prize to the girl of school age writing the best essay on "Why You ...
— Better Homes in America • Mrs W.B. Meloney
... of the latter half of the seventeenth century, says:—'The playhouse was abhorred by the Puritans, and avoided by those who desired the character of seriousness or decency. A grave lawyer would have debased his dignity, and a young trader would have impaired his credit, by appearing in those mansions of dissolute licentiousness.' Johnson's ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... you, or of you, Mistress Bessie?" replied the Squire, playfully. "And what is all your useless, chattering life but pleasuring? The playhouse is but a perilous place for giddy-brained lasses like you; but for once, harkee, for once, we'll venture on taking you, if you'll promise to keep your silly head safe ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... eyes roved far and wide over the lovely prospect that lay outside, broad stretches of sunny, rolling meadows, dotted with clumps of trees, and framed in the arched opening of the summer-house. This summer-house had been a favorite playhouse of his father and uncles in their boyhood. He knew a dozen stories about it; and now his eyes turned to the lattice walls, carved everywhere with the familiar initials, and the devices of the four brothers Montfort: John's egg and Jim's oyster, Roger's book and Dick's ship. ...
— Fernley House • Laura E. Richards
... of ivory, with the portraitures on their lids of two ladies of the town; the originals to be seen every night in the side-boxes of the playhouse. ...
— Isaac Bickerstaff • Richard Steele
... into my shop, young leddy, as you'll draw them to the playhouse; but bookselling is a dusty trade and is not for fair wits or ...
— Mummery - A Tale of Three Idealists • Gilbert Cannan
... to the Globe playhouse, where my Lord bade me dismount and deliver a secret message to the chief player—which message was, "had he diligently perused and examined that he wot of, and what said he thereof?" Which I did. Thereupon he that ...
— New Burlesques • Bret Harte
... the first statesmen in the land were present at a banquet in honor of Charles Kean, is evidence enough that no puerile or uncultivated taste is this which relishes the theatre. Goethe presiding over the playhouse at Weimar, Euripides and Sophocles writing tragedies, the greatest genius of the English language acting in his own productions at the Globe Theatre, people like Siddons and Kean and Cushman and Macready illustrating this art with the resources of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... manager, Dimonds.' Pleased by the stranger's ready wit, Mr. Gordon scribbled a note of introduction to Dimonds there and then. So soon as he had 'discussed a brace of muffins and so many eggs,' the new Romeo started for the playhouse, and that very day bills were posted to the effect that 'a Gentleman of Fashion would make his first appearance on February 9 in a role of Shakespeare.' All the lower boxes were immediately secured by Lady Belmore and other lights of Bath. 'Butlers and Abigails,' ...
— The Works of Max Beerbohm • Max Beerbohm
... horse races, although they were to be seen from the windows in the back room of the State House: nor have I attended a single play, although the theatre has been open twice a week the chief part of the Winter, and the playhouse adjoins the ...
— The United States of America Part I • Ediwn Erle Sparks
... Stephen Collins, and Kelly, and Maxfield, the three managers, come upon deck, and drink success to the Leander's crew, out of a bucket of grog we had up for the purpose, and the ould mare of Portsmouth sent his compliments to us, begging us not to break our own necks or set fire to the playhouse? Another glass, Jem, to the crew of the Leander: don't you remember the ducking ould Mother Macguire, the bum-boat woman, received, for bringing paw-paw articles on board, when we came in to refit?" "May I never want 'bacca, if I shall ever forget that old she crocodile! ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... making inroads even upon the incessant | |auction-bridge playing, and he or she who neither | |dances nor plays auction has a dull time of it. | |Washington society is rather methodical in its | |dancing. Monday nights are given up to the | |subscription dances at the Playhouse, and another | |set at the Willard. Tuesday night the army dances | |are given at the Playhouse. On Wednesdays are the | |regular Chevy Chase Club dinner dances, and on | |Thursdays are those at the Navy Club. On ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... writ the distinguishing characters of men and women under the names of Musical Instruments, the Distress of the News-writers, the Inventory of the Playhouse, and the Description of the Thermometer,[49] which I cannot but look upon as the greatest ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... lonely man be an assiduous frequenter of the playhouse, for the drama will also open the world's heart to him, and that by a plainer and less elusive speech. Seated in the theatre among his kind, he knows a deeper pleasure than other men; for while to these the changing scene brings remembrance or anticipation of ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith
... considered: since, had he known and kept the secret in my uncle's lifetime, beyond a doubt, and unpleasant as the thought might be, I was enormously his debtor. That stern warrior's attitude towards the playhouse had ever been uncompromising. Stalls, pit, and circles—the very names suggested Dantesque images and provided illustrations for many a discourse. Themselves verbose, these discourses indicated A Short Way with Stage-players, and it stood in no doubt ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... sit in the gaudy playhouse, I dream my dreams of the great books I want to write, the orations I want to deliver, the lessons I want to teach, and I wonder how long my time of probation will be. Strange that I should never make ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... little lad, sat many and many a time, more than fifty years ago; but my house is no Conventicle, and on all weekdays and Lawful Occasions my family is privileged to partake to their heart's content of innocent and permitted pastimes. I never set my face against a visit to the Playhouse or to the Concert-room; although to me, who can remember the most famous players and singers of Europe, the King's Theatre and the Pantheon, and even Drury-Lane, are very tame places, filled with very foolish folk. But they please the young people, and ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... Mr. de Muralt's time, and was not the poet of the polite part of the nation. His dramatic pieces, which pleased some time in acting, were despised by all persons of taste, and might be compared to many plays which I have seen in France, that drew crowds to the playhouse, at the same time that they were intolerable to read; and of which it might be said, that the whole city of Paris exploded them, and yet all flocked to see them represented on the stage. Methinks Mr. de Muralt should have mentioned an excellent ...
— Letters on England • Voltaire
... loved each other, and so loved life and everything and everybody, and God's great green out-o'-doors was their playhouse. Margaret's income was quite sufficient for their needs, and mad ambition passed them by. Gainsborough drew pictures and painted and sketched, and then ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... with ten dollars' worth of trappings on him, and a driver with ten cents' worth on him; a palace like a dream of stone, entirely surrounded by nightmare hovels; a new, shiny, modern apartment house, and shouldering up against it a cankered rubbish heap that was once the playhouse of a Caesar, its walls bearded like a pard's face with tufted laurel and splotched like a brandy drunkard's with red stains; a church that is a dismal ruin without and a glittering Aladdin's Cave of gold and gems and porphyry and onyx within; a wide and handsome avenue ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... the famous Jack London Club. This was inspired by Dr. Francis H. Bowley, President of the Massachusetts S.P.C.A. The Club expects no dues. Membership is automatic through the mere promise to leave any playhouse during an animal performance. The protest thereby registered is bound, in good time, to do away with the abuses that attend animal training for show purposes. "Michael Brother of Jerry" was written out of Jack London's heart of love and head of understanding of animals, aided by a years'-long study ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London
... have forgotten the injuries of yesterday. Everything seemed to me a savory foretaste of Spain. I discovered an unconscionable amount of local color. I discovered it at St. Jean de Luz, the last French town, in a great brown church, filled with galleries and boxes, like a playhouse—the altar and chair, indeed, looked very much like a proscenium; at Bohebia, on the Bidassoa, the small yellow stream which divides France from Spain, and which at this point offers to view the celebrated Isle of Pheasants, a little bushy strip ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... this occasion. When we had placed him in his Coach, with myself at his left hand, the Captain before him, and his Butler at the Head of his Footmen in the Rear, we convoyed him in safety to the Playhouse."[142] "One night, in the beginning of November, 1749," wrote Walpole, "as I was returning from Holland House by moonlight, about ten at night, I was attacked by two highwaymen in Hyde Park, and the pistol of one of them going off ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... heard Mr. Stellingfleet; the coach for York is at the Black swan their; above it ye come in to Lincolnes Innes Fields, a brave place weill built round about, much like the Place Royall at Paris. Heir lodged my Lord Middleton, heir is the Dukes playhouse, wheir we saw Tom Sydserfes Spanish Comedie Tarugo'es Wiles, or the Coffee House,[471] acted. In the pit they payed 30 p., in our place 18s. He could not forget himselfe: was very satyricall sneering at the Greshamers for their late invention ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder
... of fate which almost always exchanges the proper labels of things and persons, Ariston was a supernumerary in one of the vaudeville theatres, through the influence of his father, who was a scene-shifter, and the job disgusted him, for in such a playhouse nobody ever died upon the stage, nobody ever came out in mourning and there was no weeping. And while Ariston kept thinking of nothing but funereal scenes, his brother dreamed of circuses, trapezes and acrobats, hoping that some day fate would send him the ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... violin. "Come along, children," she said. "We must get at that backbone business at once. Let's race to the playhouse." ...
— A Girl Of The Limberlost • Gene Stratton Porter
... and between old forest trees, the college, an admirable church—Bruton Church—the capitol, the Governor's house or "palace," and many very tolerable dwelling-houses of frame and brick. There were also taverns, a marketplace, a bowling-green, an arsenal, and presently a playhouse. The capitol at Williamsburg was a commodious one, able to house most of the machinery of state. Here were the Council Chamber, "where the Governor and Council sit in very great state, in imitation of the King and Council, or the Lord ...
— Pioneers of the Old South - A Chronicle of English Colonial Beginnings, Volume 5 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Mary Johnston
... got the distinguishing marks of party in their muffs, their fans, and their furbelows. The Whig ladies put on their patches in a different manner from the Tories.[4] They have made schisms in the playhouse, and each have their particular sides at the opera: and when a man changes his party, he must infallibly count upon the loss of his mistress. I asked a gentleman the other day, how he liked such a lady? but he would not ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... seen him, with these two good-looking eyes of mine. This fog opens and shuts like a playhouse-curtain, and I got a peep at the chap, about ten minutes since. It was a short look, but it was a sure one; I would swear to the fellow in any admiralty court ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... the name it went by, I suppose, among the clerks and servants of the brew-house; for when the Quaker Barclay bought the whole, I read that name with wonder in the Writings."—"But there were really curious remains of the old Globe Playhouse, which, though hexagonal in form without, was round within, as circles contain more space than other shapes, and Bees make their cells in hexagons only because that figure best admits of junction. Before I quitted the premises, however, I learned that Tarleton, the actor ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... to have its "playhouse" for children. If fitted with screens to keep out mosquitoes, the younger members of the family, especially the girls, will literally "live in it" for six months of the year. I would suggest fitting it with canvas curtains ...
— Amateur Gardencraft - A Book for the Home-Maker and Garden Lover • Eben E. Rexford
... though it's hard to believe him, for he did not tell it till a great while afterwards; but, however, it's likely enough, as the thing turned out, that he was not far out of the way, for towards the middle of dinner, as he says, they were talking of stage-plays, having a playhouse, and being great play-actors at Mount Juliet's Town; and Miss Isabella turns short to my ...
— Castle Rackrent • Maria Edgeworth
... reading a "story-form" of some already triumphant film. Certainly the resemblance is almost too pronounced to be fortuitous; from the sensational branding scene, through cowboy stunts, to the up-town playhouse, where a repentant and wife-seeking hero recognises his mark upon the shoulder of the leading lady—and so to reconciliation, slow fade-out, and the announcement of Next Week's Pictures. But though it is impossible not to suspect Miss BURT of having an eye to what poetic journalism ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 24, 1920. • Various
... and dreamt for a time of spring passing into a high summer sunshine, into a continuing music, of love. He thought of a world like some great playhouse in which players and orchestra and audience all co-operate in a noble production without dissent or conflict. He thought he was the savage of thirty thousand years ago dreaming of the great world that is still perhaps thirty thousand years ahead. His effort to see more ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells
... aloud the applause, greeting that which caricatures religion, sneers at virtue, or hints at indecency." Not only the actors and the onlookers of the average theater are vile, but all of the immediate associations of the playhouse must correspond with it. If not in the same building with the theater, in adjoining ones, at least, are found the wine-parlor and the brothel. It is generally conceded that no theater can be prosperous if it is wholly separated from ...
— Questionable Amusements and Worthy Substitutes • J. M. Judy
... the characteristics of a man of fashion were, to wear velvet breeches, with panes or slashes of silk, an enormous starched ruff, a gilt-handled sword, and a Spanish dagger: to play at cards or dice in the room of the groom-porter, and to smoke tobacco in the tilt-yard, or at the playhouse. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... over from a near-by playhouse, a little tepee made of cast off "shutters" the janitor had put outside after wrenching them from hinges, and the girls had promptly availed themselves of the material for a most ...
— The Girl Scout Pioneers - or Winning the First B. C. • Lillian C Garis
... 'Twere better so indeed. Or what think you of the playhouse? A fine gay glossy fool should be given there, like a new masking habit, after the masquerade is over, and we have done with the disguise. For a fool's visit is always a disguise, and never admitted by a woman of wit, but to blind her affair with a lover of sense. If you ...
— The Way of the World • William Congreve
... Reynolds, Dr. Johnson, and Garrick. At this time she wrote a number of poems and aspired to become a dramatist. Her Percy (1777), with a prologue and epilogue by Garrick, had a long run at Covent Garden. Somewhat later she came to believe that the playhouse was a grave public evil, and refused to attend the revival of her own play with Mrs. Siddons in the leading part. After 1789 she and her sisters devoted themselves to starting schools for poor children, teaching them religion and housework, ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... profession, and jack of all trades through necessity. He could play any part from Macbeth to the hind leg of an elephant, equally well or bad, as the case might be. What he did not know about a theatre was not worth knowing; what he could not do about a playhouse was not worth doing—provided you took his word for it. From this it might be inferred he was a useful man, but he was not. He had a queer way of doing things he ought not to do, and of leaving undone things he should ...
— A Pirate of Parts • Richard Neville
... embellishes the ceiling. A pit of vast size, divided into comfortable sittings, six tiers of boxes, and an orchestra of great space, suited to the extraordinary size of the house, secure a far less adulterated playhouse atmosphere than we are used to; and so exempt from the ordinary inconveniences, that we were able to sit out the Semiramide, even with Ronzi di Begnis, now old and out of keeping, for the heroine. Surely she never should have been Semiramis, even in her palmy day! Actors and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... balls, &c., the people of no fashion, besides one royal place, called his Majesty's Bear-garden, have been in constant possession of all hops, fairs, revels, &c. Two places have been agreed to be divided between them, namely, the church and the playhouse, where they segregate themselves from each other in a remarkable manner; for, as the people of fashion exalt themselves at church over the heads of the people of no fashion, so in the playhouse they abase themselves in the ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... away, with the two who had so recently left the house. In fancy she saw the brilliantly lighted streets, the throng of pleasure seekers and pretty women in gay attire. She heard the sound of wheels, the persistent "honk-honk" of motor cars, and, in the playhouse, the crash of cymbals and drums. Somewhere in the happy crowd were Allison and Isabel, while she sat in silence ...
— Old Rose and Silver • Myrtle Reed
... the whole told heavily against the sorely harassed object of the gangsman's quest, rendering it, amongst other things, extremely unsafe for him to indulge in those unconventional outbursts which, under happier conditions, so uniformly marked his jovial moods. At the playhouse, for example, he could not heave empty bottles or similar tokens of appreciation upon the stage without grave risk of incurring the fate that overtook Steven David, Samuel Jenkins and Thomas Williams, three sailors of Falmouth town ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... the Moon in The Spectator, No. 22 (Steele), Monday, 26 March, 1711. 'Your most humble servant, William Serene' writes to Mr. Spectator bewailing the fact that nobody on the stage rises according to merit. Although grown old in the playhouse service, and having often appeared on the boards, he has never had a line given him to speak. None the less 'I have acted', he asserts, 'several Parts of Household-stuff with great Applause for many years: I am one of the Men in the Hangings in the Emperour of the Moon.' [The allusion ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... carriage room windows filtered in a mysterious, softened twilight. The covered surrey was a favorite retreat of Mary-'Gusta's. She had discovered it herself—which made it doubly alluring, of course—and she seldom invited her juvenile friends to share its curtained privacy with her. It was her playhouse, her tent, and her enchanted castle, much too sacred to be made common property. Here she came on rainy Saturdays and on many days not rainy when other children, those possessing brothers or sisters, played ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... had their company of actors—not all at the same time. The principal Houses were those at Southwark, and especially at Bank Side, where there were three, including the famous Globe: the Blackfriars Playhouse: the Fortune in Golden Lane, and the Curtain at Shoreditch. If you will look at the map you will observe that not one of these theatres is within the City—that at Blackfriars was in the former precinct of the Dominicans and outside ...
— The History of London • Walter Besant
... of the machine, but there seemed nothing to distinguish it from the thousands of other piratical craft which pillage the public with the aid of the taximeter clock on the port beam! Soon they were at the big Broadway playhouse, where Shirley floundered out first, after the ungallant manner of many sere-and-yellow beaux. He swayed unsteadily, teetering on his cane, as Helene leaped lightly to the sidewalk beside him. The driver stood by the door of the ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... largest playhouse of New York and of the New World! Imagine it filled with people from foot-lights to the last row in the topmost gallery—orchestra, dress circle, and balconies—a huge uprising, semicircular bowl, lined with ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... clothes in Paris and are only satisfied with the latest fashion. They drink French liquor in French style and demand the best Parisian comedy and opera in their theaters. The Colon theater is finer than anything in New York, and rivals any playhouse in Europe. It seats thirty-seven hundred and fifty people and I am told that a man cannot get in unless he is dressed ...
— Birdseye Views of Far Lands • James T. Nichols
... she was once more sitting with affectionate reverence at his feet. When he left her in a great low house that fronted on the majestic Hudson, June clung to him with tears and of her own accord kissed him for the first time since she had torn her little playhouse to pieces at the foot of the beech down in the mountains far away. And Hale went back with peace in his heart, but ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.
... rich western friend the chums established a photo playhouse in the great metropolis, where new ...
— The Girls of Central High on Lake Luna - or, The Crew That Won • Gertrude W. Morrison
... Oh, honey, we chillun never been harness up in no little bit of place to play like dese chillun bout here dese days. We had all de big fields en de pretty woods to wander round en bout en make us playhouse in. Seems like de Lord had made de little streams just right for we chillun to play in en all kind of de prettiest flowers to come up right down side de paths us little feet had made dere, but dat wasn' nothin. Dere ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... had seen no company and listened to no wits, the entertainment bestowed upon her was as wonderful as a night at the playhouse would have been. To watch the vivid changing face; to hearken to jesting stories of men and women who seemed like the heroes and heroines of her romances; to hear love itself—the love she trembled and palpitated at the mere thought ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... No. 23, there is inserted a mock advertisement, professing to teach the whole art of ogling, the church ogle, the playhouse ogle, a flying ogle ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope
... another divinity student, already mentioned as a college friend of Smith's, Dr. Maclaine of the Hague, played a minor part. But an amateur representation of an unexceptionable play under the eye of the professors was one thing, the erection of a public playhouse, catering like other public playhouses for the too licentious taste of the period, was another, and the project of Mr. Bogle and his friends in 1762 excited equal alarm in the populace of the city, in the Town Council, and in the University. The Council refused ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... success. The buttermilk was cold, the spice cake was fresh, the apples and peaches were juicy, the improvements highly commendable. Peter was asked if he would consider a membership in the Golf Club, the playhouse was discussed, and three hours later a group of warm friends parted, with the agreement that Mickey was to spend a day of the latter part of the week fishing on Atwater. The Hardings smiled broadly. "Well son, did we manage that ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter
... in quarto, undated, 'A Catalogue of the Original Paintings, Busts, and Carved Figures, &c. &c., now Exhibiting by the Society of Sign-painters, at the Large Room, the upper end of Bow Street, Covent Garden, nearly opposite the Playhouse.'" ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... characters which he personated. They were probably the most dignified and majestic, for to these the portly and graceful figure of his person was well adapted. At length he became master of a company of players, and the proprietor of a playhouse called the Fortune, which he erected at his own expense, near Whitecross-street; and he was also joint proprietor and master of the Royal Bear-Garden, on the Bank side, in Southwark. By the profits accruing from these occupations, added to his paternal inheritance, and to the dowries of his two ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... and possibly in other towns, a playhouse was built long before such a thing was known in the vicinity of London. We shall probably be right, however, in judging the major portion of the country by its metropolis and assuming that, until 1572 or thereabouts, actors and audiences had to manage without buildings specially designed for their ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... visible gratifications: the present age abounds with a race of liars who are content with the consciousness of falsehood, and whose pride is to deceive others without any gain or glory to themselves. Of this tribe it is the supreme pleasure to remark a lady in the playhouse or the park, and to publish, under the character of a man suddenly enamoured, an advertisement in the news of the next day, containing a minute description of her person and her dress. From this artifice, however, no other effect can be expected, than perturbations which ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... spoil him in my particular application, I cannot tell. In my opinion he seems such a one as will keep an entertainment to its primitive institution, and not suffer it to be changed, sometimes into a mooting hall, sometimes a school of rhetoric, now and then a dicing room, a playhouse, or a stage. For do not you observe some making fine orations and putting cases at a supper, others declaiming or reading some of their own compositions, and others proposing prizes to dancers and mimics? Alcibiades and Theodorus turned Polition's banquet into a temple of initiation, ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... went so far as to call the Lincoln assassination a judgment(!), as it happened in a playhouse on a Good Friday! It appears that the President had compunctions, and at the last moment was disinclined to go, though a party had been made up to oblige a young espoused couple; but General Grant, who was to be a feature of the commanded performance, was called away—no ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... reading public only, and no performance, representation, production, recitation, or public reading, or radio broadcasting may be given except by special arrangement with Walter H. Baker Company, 41 Winter Street, Boston, Mass., or Playhouse Plays, 14 East 38th Street, ...
— Wappin' Wharf - A Frightful Comedy of Pirates • Charles S. Brooks
... the Academy, but must dance and fence in my own lodgings. Lord Albemarle [the British ambassador] is come from Fontainebleau. I have very good reason to be pleased with the reception I met with. The best amusement for strangers in Paris is the Opera, and the next is the playhouse. The theatre is a school to acquire the French language, for which reason I frequent it more ...
— The Winning of Canada: A Chronicle of Wolf • William Wood
... Baronet in the brilliant world, who, on his attention being called to the fragrance of a May evening in the country, observed, 'This may be very well; but, for my part, I prefer the smell of a flambeau at the playhouse.' ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... conferred on him to the great joy of that noble family." "Escaped from the New Gaol, Terence M'Dermot. If he will return, he will be kindly received." "Colds caught at this season are The Companion to the Playhouse." "Ready to sail to the West Indies, the Canterbury Flying Machine in one day." "To be sold to the best Bidder, My Seat in Parliament being vacated." "I have long laboured under a complaint For ready money only," "Notice is hereby given, and no ...
— De Libris: Prose and Verse • Austin Dobson
... old black-letter dialogue preserved in the Roxburgh collection, called A Mad Kinde of Wooing; or, a Dialogue between Will the Simple and Nan the Subtill, with their loving argument. To the tune of the New Dance at the Red Bull Playhouse. Printed by the ...
— Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of England • Robert Bell
... play, preparatory to giving it, Boker, even, revising it in part. The American premiere was reserved for James E. Murdoch, at the Philadelphia Walnut Street Theater, January 20, 1851, and it was revived at the same playhouse in April, 1855, by E.L. Davenport. As Stoddard says of it, one "should know something—the more the better—about the plays that Dr. Bird and Judge Conrad wrote for Forrest and his successors, about Poe's 'Politian', Sargent's ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Francesca da Rimini • George Henry Boker
... dear, you need not nod and wink at me!" cries Hetty. "Mamma asked Harry on purpose to enliven us, and I am talking until he begins, just like the fiddles at the playhouse, you know, Theo! First the fiddles. Then ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... that a satisfactory understanding of it would come slowly; but walking here in the winter sunshine along the village street, she had that sensation of strangeness which the child has on coming from the lighted playhouse into the street.... The set vision that tormented her within—that, too, ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... and will ... before the R.B. poem comes out. And what is 'Luria'? A poem and not a drama? I mean, a poem not in the dramatic form? Well! I have wondered at you sometimes, not for daring, but for bearing to trust your noble works into the great mill of the 'rank, popular' playhouse, to be ground to pieces between the teeth of vulgar actors and actresses. I, for one, would as soon have 'my soul among lions.' 'There is a fascination in it,' says Miss Mitford, and I am sure there must be, to account for it. Publics in the mass are bad enough; but to distil ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... the man's talk incessant. He was plainly a practised conversationalist; the nicety of his inflections, the elegance of his gestures, and the fine play of his expression, told us that. We, meanwhile, sat like aliens in a playhouse; we could see the actors were upon some material business and performing well, but the plot of the drama remained undiscoverable. Names of places, the name of Captain Hart, occasional disconnected words, tantalised without enlightening us; and the less we understood, the more gallantly, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and, among quiet and conventional citizens, was supposed to have horns and a barbed tail that snapped sparks where it struck on the pavement. When he first purchased the Orpheum Theater, the most exclusive playhouse of the city, he began to appear in its lobby every night in a dinner-coat or a dress-suit, silk topper and all, with an almost modest diamond stud in his white shirt-front; and ladies, as they came in, asked in awed whispers of their husbands: "Is that Dan Spratt?" Some few who ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester
... day he disliked luxury. At home under private tutors the boy studied Latin, French, and English, and picked up a little Italian by overhearing his sister's lessons. In 1758 Frankfurt was occupied by a French army, and a French playhouse was set going for the diversion of the officers. In the interest of his French Wolfgang was allowed to go to the theatre, and he made such rapid progress that he was soon studying the dramatic unities as expounded by Corneille and actually trying to write a French play. Withal he was left ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... done, then to be fooled of the world as you schollers are? But be merry, my lads: you haue happened vpon the most excellent vocation in the world for money; they come North and South to bring it to our playhouse; and for honours, who of more report then Dick Burbage and Will Kempe? he is not counted a Gentleman that knowes not Dick Burbage and Wil Kempe; there's not a country wench that can dance Sellengers Round[xii:1] but can talke of Dick ...
— Kemps Nine Daies Wonder - Performed in a Daunce from London to Norwich • William Kemp
... happy day as it was, but it was over at last, and after they had eaten their supper, where Kirsty served it to them in their playhouse, Scotty went to the house to bid the old woman good-bye, and ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith
... alive here. You ought to come to New York to live. Both of you will love it when you are there for a few days. I don't mean to come to a hotel. I mean to take a little apartment, a furnished apartment at first, to see how you like it—two rooms and kitchenette, like a playhouse." ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber
... great naves were intended for men and women to stand or kneel in before God. And there were no high or low standing or kneeling places; all were on a level before Him. It is our modern Protestantism which has brought in lazy lolling in cushioned pews; and the gallery, which makes a church as like a playhouse as possible!" ...
— The Man Between • Amelia E. Barr
... where the roses were wildest and the flowers grew thickest was a little cottage, built to fit Rosanna. Grown people had to stoop to get in and their heads almost scraped the ceilings. The furniture all fitted Rosanna too, even to the tiny piano. This was Rosanna's playhouse. She kept her dolls here, and there was a desk with all sorts of writing paper that a maid sorted and put in order every morning before Rosanna ...
— The Girl Scouts at Home - or Rosanna's Beautiful Day • Katherine Keene Galt
... The man who could love her as she once believed men could love, and who could give her something else besides approval of her beauty and her mind, had not disclosed himself. She had begun to think that he never would, that he did not exist, that he was an imagination of the playhouse and the novel. The men whom she knew were careful to show her that they appreciated how distinguished was her position, and how inaccessible she was to them. They seemed to think that by so humbling themselves, and by emphasizing her ...
— Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... wonderfully well?—and a grey hat with a blue feather—and a pretty nag to ride on—and all the soldiers to present arms as you pass, and say, "There goes the Captain's lady"? What do you think of a side-box at Lincoln's Inn playhouse, or of standing up to a minuet with my Lord ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray
... strong bid, Bob; but really if I did remain overnight I 'd much prefer putting in the hours talking over old times. With all due respect to your sister, old boy, I confess I have n't very much heart for the stage. I 've grown away from it; have n't even looked into a playhouse for years." ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... the ducking-stool; and she, on the contrair part, miscawed me for a forward northern tyke—and so we parted never to meet again, as I hope and trust. And so I stood between your lordship and that temptation, which might have been worse than the ordinary, or the playhouse either; since you wot well what Solomon, King of the Jews, sayeth of the strange woman—for, said I to mysell, we have taken to dicing already, and if we take to drabbing next, the Lord kens ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... se'ennight; that a deputation of Nottoways and Meherrins, having business with the white fathers in Williamsburgh, were to be persuaded to dance their wildest, whoop their loudest, around a bonfire built in the market square; that at the playhouse Cato was to be given with extraordinary magnificence, and one may readily see that there might have been found, in this sunny September week, places less entertaining ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... turn out to be a person of infinite capacity, you will no doubt find life infinitely interesting. However, all you have to do now is to play with your companions. They have many pretty toys, as you see: a playhouse, pictures, images, flowers, bright fabrics, music: above all, themselves; for the most amusing child's toy is another child. At the end of four years, your mind will change: you will become wise; and then you ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... of restin' unto the Lord and findin' Him, and pluckin' out the eye that offended him 'cordin' to Scripter, as I did, HE followed after HER tryin' to get her back, until, findin' that wasn't no use, he took a big disgust and came up here to hide hisself, where there wasn't no playhouse nor play-actors, and no wimmen but Injin squaws. He pre-empted the land, and nat'rally, there bein' no one ez cared to live there but himself, he had it all his own way, made it pay, and, as I was sayin' before, held his ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... think much of your idea of a playhouse—those tin cans. But it's better than having to ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... but mean Parents Born, These Times is only made the rich Man's scorn, Howe'er her Beauty tempting some young Spark He takes her to the Playhouse and the Park, Where he with many Imprecations vows, His Fortune and his Life to her he owes; But finding his Temptations are in vain, Her Company in Wrath he do's refrain; Which at the first may touch her tender Heart, And make her feel the force of Cupid's Dart; But Time and Absence ...
— The Fifteen Comforts of Matrimony: Responses From Women • Various
... and actors, when I was at Cauldkirk, and how you listened in dutiful agreement with him. Would he have consented to your marriage if he had known that I was one of the 'spouting rogues,' associated with the 'painted Jezebels' of the playhouse? He would never have consented—and you yourself, my darling, would have trembled at the bare idea ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... feathers"; and also hints that the play failed in representation through its being acted in winter in "an open and black theatre," and because it wanted "a full and understanding auditory." "Since that time," he sagely adds, "I have noted most of the people that come to the playhouse resemble those ignorant asses who, visiting stationers' shops, their use is not to inquire for good books, but new books." And then comes the ever-recurring wail of the playwright, Elizabethan as well as Georgian, respecting the taste of audiences. "Should a man," he says, "present ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various |
