The Rise and Fall of the New Edinburgh Theatre Royal, 1767-1859: Archival Documents and Performance History

Abstract

In 1859 the Edinburgh house of Wood and Company published a Sketch of the History of the Edinburgh Theatre-Royal in honor of its final performance and closing, its author lamenting that “This House, which has been a scene of amusement to the citizens of Edinburgh for as long as most of them have lived, has at length come to the termination of its own existence.” The brief booklet provided the playbill as a frontispiece recorded a long evening to commemorate the theatre building’s ninety years of careworn performance history. This essay incorporates evidence about the Edinburgh Theatre Royal from early publications and also incorporates new archival research to answer questions about the theatre’s ambitious number of performances, about its religious and political challengers, about the fiscal issues that impeded its success, about its supporters and actors, and about its reliance on talent from the ”south.”