"played as pantomime dames are often - though not exclusively - older, matronly women. Indeed, they may be the protagonist's mother, as in ""Jack and the Beanstalk"" and ""Robinson Crusoe"", or a nursemaid to the protagonist, as in ""Sleeping Beauty"" and ""Snow White"". Although often warm and sympathetic characters, dames may also be employed as comic antagonists, such as with the Ugly Sisters in ""Cinderella"". Some pantomimes traditionally do not contain standard dame roles, but certain productions may add a dame character, as in the case with many pantomime versions of ""Peter Pan"". Further examples of these characters include: Pantomime"
"at the Lyceum Theatre in 1939. Traditionally performed at Christmas and afterwards, with family audiences, British pantomime continues as a popular form of theatre, incorporating song, dance, buffoonery, slapstick, cross-dressing, in-jokes, topical references, audience participation, and mild sexual innuendo. Pantomime story lines and scripts usually make no direct reference to Christmas, and are almost always based on traditional children's stories, particularly the fairy tales of Charles Perrault, Joseph Jacobs, Hans Christian Andersen and the Grimm Brothers. Some of the most popular pantomime stories include ""Cinderella"", ""Aladdin"", ""Dick Whittington and His Cat"" and ""Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs"", as well"
"new Entertainment in Dancing after the manner of the Antient Pantomimes"". The same year he produced a pantomime on the subject of ""Perseus and Andromeda"". After this, pantomime was regular feature at Drury Lane. In 1717 at Lincoln's Inn, actor and manager John Rich introduced Harlequin into the theatres' pantomimes under the name of ""Lun"" (for ""lunatic""). He gained great popularity for his pantomimes, especially beginning with his 1724 production of ""The Necromancer; or, History of Dr. Faustus"". These early pantomimes were silent, or ""dumb show"", performances consisting of only dancing and gestures. Spoken drama was allowed in London only"
"a close with the suggestion of harmony restored. John Rich, earlier in the century, made Harlequin with his slap stick able to transform stage props; and later Joseph Grimaldi as Clown was in charge of transformations. Early pantomime related to and contained the traditional harlequinade by means of a transition in which a group of characters descended from the traditional types from the ""commedia del arte"" were transformed and ""revealed"" as being the key characters in the pantomime of the fairy tale that followed. A production in 1781 of ""Robinson Crusoe"" by Richard Brinsley Sheridan is credited with breaking down"
"Faust"" was set to Bachs ""B minor Mass"". Béjart himself danced in ""Notre Faust"" at its New York City premiere in 1977. Faust ballets Faust ballets are a set of ballets, choreographed between the 18th and 20th centuries, based on the legend of Faust. As early as 1723, London-based John Rich put on a Faust-inspired ballet pantomime called ""The Necromancer"" at the Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre. In the 19th century several productions took Faust as their subject matter including August Bournonvilles 1832 production ""Faust"" for the Royal Danish Ballet. In 1833, Andre Deshayes ""Faust"" premiered in London with music by"
"of conductor Richard Bonynge, and released in 2005. La somnambule, ou L'arrivée d'un nouveau seigneur La somnambule is a ballet-pantomime composed by Ferdinand Hérold and premiered on 19 September 1827 at the Académie Royale de Musique. The scenario was by Eugène Scribe, and it was choreographed by Jean-Pierre Aumer. This ballet was produced in 1827 at the height of a fashion for stage works incorporating somnambulism. The work was quite popular in Paris and inspired many more works incorporating somnambulism, including Vincenzo Bellini's well-known Italian opera ""La sonnambula"". Although the work was unperformed for over 150 years and remains unpublished,"
"The Miraculous Mandarin The Miraculous Mandarin (; ) Op. 19, Sz. 73 (BB 82), is a one act pantomime ballet composed by Béla Bartók between 1918–1924, and based on the story by Melchior Lengyel. Premiered November 27, 1926 in Cologne, Germany, it caused a scandal and was subsequently banned on moral grounds. Although more successful at its Prague premiere, it was generally performed during the rest of Bartók's life in the form of a concert suite, which preserves about two-thirds of the original pantomime's music. After an orchestral introduction depicting the chaos of the big city, the action begins in"
"written by E.L. Blanchard. From 1893 to 1923, most of the music for the Drury Lane pantomimes was arranged by Jimmy Glover (1861–1931), Director of Music . Drury Lane pantomime Drury Lane pantomime is a long tradition at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, dating from the early 18th century. In every Christmas season, a pantomime is produced which has a leading place among the many other pantomimes of the capital. Other pantomimes are sometimes produced during the rest of the year. The first English pantomime was ""Tavern Bilkers"" performed at Drury Lane in 1702. This started a popular tradition in"
"The Knight of the Burning Pestle The Knight of the Burning Pestle is a play in five acts by Francis Beaumont, first performed at Blackfriars Theatre in 1607 and published in a quarto in 1613. It is the earliest whole parody (or pastiche) play in English. The play is a satire on chivalric romances in general, similar to ""Don Quixote"", and a parody of Thomas Heywood's ""The Four Prentices of London"" and Thomas Dekker's ""The Shoemaker's Holiday"". It breaks the fourth wall from its outset. It is most likely that the play was written for the child actors at Blackfriars"
"of the complete ballet until recent years. Recordings of the suite include: Notable recordings of the complete ballet include: The Miraculous Mandarin The Miraculous Mandarin (; ) Op. 19, Sz. 73 (BB 82), is a one act pantomime ballet composed by Béla Bartók between 1918–1924, and based on the story by Melchior Lengyel. Premiered November 27, 1926 in Cologne, Germany, it caused a scandal and was subsequently banned on moral grounds. Although more successful at its Prague premiere, it was generally performed during the rest of Bartók's life in the form of a concert suite, which preserves about two-thirds of"
"Faust ballets Faust ballets are a set of ballets, choreographed between the 18th and 20th centuries, based on the legend of Faust. As early as 1723, London-based John Rich put on a Faust-inspired ballet pantomime called ""The Necromancer"" at the Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre. In the 19th century several productions took Faust as their subject matter including August Bournonvilles 1832 production ""Faust"" for the Royal Danish Ballet. In 1833, Andre Deshayes ""Faust"" premiered in London with music by Adolphe Adam. Fanny Elssler danced the role of Gretchen in Jules Perrots 1848 Milan production. In 1852 Paul Taglioni, brother of Maria"
"La somnambule, ou L'arrivée d'un nouveau seigneur La somnambule is a ballet-pantomime composed by Ferdinand Hérold and premiered on 19 September 1827 at the Académie Royale de Musique. The scenario was by Eugène Scribe, and it was choreographed by Jean-Pierre Aumer. This ballet was produced in 1827 at the height of a fashion for stage works incorporating somnambulism. The work was quite popular in Paris and inspired many more works incorporating somnambulism, including Vincenzo Bellini's well-known Italian opera ""La sonnambula"". Although the work was unperformed for over 150 years and remains unpublished, it was rediscovered and recorded under the direction"
"the Dancers"", written probably around 361 AD. Roman pantomime was a production, usually based upon myth or legend, for a solo male dancer—clad in a long silk tunic and a short mantle (""pallium"") that was often used as a ""prop""—accompanied by a sung ""libretto"" (called the ""fabula saltica"" or ""dance-story"") rendered by a singer or chorus (though Lucian states that originally the pantomime himself was the singer). Music was supplied by flute and the pulse of an iron-shod shoe called a scabellum. Performances might be in a private household, with minimal personnel, or else lavish theatrical productions involving a large"
"remains popular today. Other notable pantomime productions included an 1877 version at the Surrey Theatre described below, as well as the following: Dramatic play versions were written by H. J. Byron in 1861, Robert Reece in 1871. A number of television versions have been created, including a 2002 version written by Simon Nye and directed by Geoff Posner. There are various pieces of art and architecture which have been used to try to date the Whittington association to earlier than the 1600s. The Elstracke engraving providing Whittington's portrait with a cat had been ascribed a c. 1590 date by some"
"American pantomime American pantomime, panto for short, refers to works of theatrical entertainment that have been presented in the United States of America since 1876. The works are derived from the entertainment genre of pantomime that developed in England, presented either as they are in Britain or adapted for the American stage and tailored to American audiences. Pantomime in America, as in England, is usually performed at Christmas time. The entertainments, aimed at families, are based on nursery stories and fairy tales, and they incorporate songs (traditional, popular and new), slapstick comedy, often topical jokes, magic, some cross-dressing, local references,"
"and Andromeda"" (1717), a ""Burlesque Entertainment in Dancing"", ""Orpheus and Eurydice"" (1718), a ""Dramatick Entertainment in Dancing"" and ""The Judgment of Paris"" (1733), a ""Dramatick Entertainment in Dancing and Singing"". John Weaver (dancer) John Weaver (21 July 1673 – 24 September 1760) was an English dancer, dancing master and choreographer, and producer of a number of works on dancing. He is often regarded as the father of English ballet and of English pantomime. Weaver was born in Shrewsbury. His father, a dance teacher, suggested he go to London and become a ballet master. Weaver seems to have left Shrewsbury in"
"giving the story a more typical ""Arabian Nights"" background. In the United Kingdom, the story of Aladdin was dramatised in 1788 by John O'Keefe for the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden. It has been a popular subject for pantomime for over 200 years. The traditional Aladdin pantomime is the source of the well-known pantomime character Widow Twankey (Aladdin's mother). In pantomime versions, changes in the setting and story are often made to fit it better into ""China"" (albeit a China situated in the East End of London rather than Medieval Baghdad), and elements of other Arabian Nights tales (in particular Ali"
"of a triumphant success."" Libretto of ""Harlequin Cock Robin and Jenny Wren Harlequin Cock Robin and Jenny Wren ""Harlequin Cock Robin and Jenny Wren; or, Fortunatus and the Water of Life, the Three Bears, the Three Gifts, the Three Wishes, and the Little Man who Woo'd the Little Maid"" was a pantomime written by W. S. Gilbert. As with many pantomimes of the Victorian era, the piece consisted of a story involving evil spirits, young lovers and ""transformation"" scenes, followed by a harlequinade. The piece premiered at the Lyceum Theatre, London on 26 December 1867. It was the only pantomime"
"well-informed popular European culture in the early 19th century: in 1817 Giovanni Pacini brought druids to the stage in Trieste with an opera to a libretto by Felice Romani about a druid priestess, ""La Sacerdotessa d'Irminsul"" (""The Priestess of Irminsul""). The most famous druidic opera, Vincenzo Bellini's ""Norma"" was a fiasco at La Scala, when it premiered the day after Christmas, 1831; but in 1833 it was a hit in London. For its libretto, Felice Romani reused some of the pseudo-druidical background of ""La Sacerdotessa"" to provide colour to a standard theatrical conflict of love and duty. The story was"
"Drury Lane pantomime Drury Lane pantomime is a long tradition at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, dating from the early 18th century. In every Christmas season, a pantomime is produced which has a leading place among the many other pantomimes of the capital. Other pantomimes are sometimes produced during the rest of the year. The first English pantomime was ""Tavern Bilkers"" performed at Drury Lane in 1702. This started a popular tradition in which the annual Christmas pantomime at Drury Lane was the foremost entertainment of this kind. The thirty seven pantomimes in the years 1852 to 1888 were all"
"pantomime in both story and style at the Royal Strand Theatre in 1860: ""Cinderella! Or the Lover, the Lackey, and the Little Glass Slipper"". In the traditional pantomime version the opening scene takes place in a forest with a hunt in progress; here Cinderella first meets Prince Charming and his ""right-hand man"" Dandini, whose name and character come from Gioachino Rossini's opera (""La Cenerentola""). Cinderella mistakes Dandini for the Prince and the Prince for Dandini. Her father, Baron Hardup, is under the thumb of his two stepdaughters, the Ugly sisters, and has a servant, Cinderella's friend Buttons. (Throughout the pantomime,"
"Omai (play) Omai is a 1785 pantomime written by John O'Keeffe with music by William Shield. It depicts the voyage of Omai, a Tahitian royal, to marry Londina the fictional daughter of Britannia. It was loosely inspired by the real visit of Omai to Europe in the 1770s and the final voyage of the explorer Captain James Cook leading up to his dramatic death in 1779. Its full name is Omai: or, a trip round the world The sets were designed by Philip James de Loutherbourg who took great care to try to make his depictions as authentic as possible"
"was added to the chase. In the first two decades of the 18th century, two rival London theatres, Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre and the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane (the patent theatres) presented productions that began seriously with classical stories that contained elements of opera and ballet and ended with a comic ""night scene"". ""Tavern Bilkers"", by John Weaver, the dancing master at Drury Lane, is cited as the first pantomime produced on the English stage. This production was not a success, and Weaver waited until 1716 to produce his next pantomimes, including ""The Loves of Mars and Venus – a"
"pamphleteer ballad, ""Bartholomew Fair: An Heroi-Comical Poem"" (1717). In 1715, Thomas Burnet wrote a brief biography entitled ""A Second Tale of a Tub, or History of Robert Powell the Puppet Showman."" The substitution of Robert for Powell's real name, Martin, was made to render the obvious satire upon Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford more effective. Martin Powell (puppetry) Martin Powell, (""fl"". 1709–1720; d. 1729) was an Irish master puppeteer and puppet show impresario, who put on a repertoire of satirical and parodical marionette shows that invariably featured the Punch character. He drew audiences first at provincial towns such as Bath,"
"also popular through much of the 18th century; as late as 1782, Charles Dibdin had a success with his pantomime ""The Lancashire Witches, or The Distresses of Harlequin."" The Heywood/Brome and Shadwell versions were reprinted together in an 1853 volume titled ""The Poetry of Witchcraft."" Laird Barber produced a modern edition of the play in 1979, under its traditional title. When Gabriel Egan produced another modern edition in 2002, he employed the title ""The Witches of Lancashire,"" in the judgement that this reflected the play as performed in 1634. (The second title derives from a letter dated 16 August 1634"
"pantomime. The Victorian pantomime was not only the template for today’s show, but very much a vehicle for music. The Poluskli Brothers hall stars. Combining a mixture of music hall, comic opera and a large chunk of spectacle, the pantomime appealed to all levels of society. The first Royal Court pantomime, or “annual” as it was known, was Babes in the Wood. It is not clear whether this was a success or not, but no further pantomime was produced at the Court for fourteen years, until 1895 with the presentation of Dick Whittington. Three years later, Arthur Lawrence was appointed"
"drawn heavily on a previous play called ""Lady Jane"", thought to have been written by Henry Chettle, Thomas Heywood and Wentworth Smith. This earlier work has not survived. The play was first published in 1607, and there is a copy of this edition in the British Library. It was not published again until its inclusion in an 1830 edition of the works of John Webster which was put together by Alexander Dyce. Most recently, it can be found in ""Delphi Complete Works of John Webster"", an eBook issued by Delphi Classics in 2015, which reproduces the Dyce introduction and text."
"and 18th centuries such as Claude-François Ménestrier (1631–1705), John Weaver (1673–1760), Jean-Georges Noverre (1727–1810) and Gasparo Angiolini (1731–1803), earned it respectability and attested to the capability of dance to render complex stories and express human emotion. In the Middle Ages, the Mummers Play was a traditional English folk play, based loosely on the Saint George and the Dragon legend, usually performed during Christmas gatherings, which contained the origin of many of the archetypal elements of the pantomime, such as stage fights, coarse humour and fantastic creatures, gender role reversal, and good defeating evil. Precursors of pantomime also included the masque,"
"her identity, and justifies her actions by asserting her independence. La Fausse Suivante La Fausse Suivante, or Le Fourbe Puni is a play by French playwright Pierre de Marivaux written in 1724, and produced for the first time by the Comédie-Italienne on July 8, 1724 at the theatre of the Hôtel de Bourgogne. The themes of the play are seduction, money, power, cross-dressing. The main male character is a manipulative libertine who promises marriage to a rich countess for her fortune. The female protagonist of the play, disguised as a knight, punishes both, the man by deceit, and the woman"
"figures in traditional European puppetry. This collaboration was highly influential and is credited with inspiring the formation of other theaters, most notably the Salzburg Marionettes under Anton Aicher in 1913 in Salzburg, Bavaria and the Toelz Marionette Theater. A German dramatist, poet, painter and composer, Pocci is credited by the Theatre with inventing the Punch and Judy Show, and contributing a remarkable 45 original works to the Theatre's library. Some were based on traditional classical plots, and some were his own inventions. Among his most prominent fairy‐tale plays are ""Blaubart"" (""Bluebeard"", 1845), ""Schattenspiel"" (""Shadow Play"", 1847), ""Hänsel und Gretel"" (""Hansel"
"times a pantomime was a performance in which a solo dancer using masks played several parts, accompanied by sung narrative and instrumental music, often played on the flute. The pantomime was an extremely popular form of entertainment in ancient Greece and Rome. Like theatre, it encompassed the genres of comedy and tragedy. There is a detailed description of ancient pantomime performance in Apuleius' ""Metamorphoses"", 10, 29ff. The Beggar of Volubilis The Beggar of Volubilis is a children's historical novel by Caroline Lawrence. The novel, the fourteenth in the Roman Mysteries series, was published in 2007. It is set during the"
"actors in scenes from named plays. There was also a tradition of private performances, with a variety of illustrated works to help with stage properties and costumes. Among these was Thomas Jefferys' ""A Collection of the Dresses of Different Nations, Antient and Modern"" (1757–72) which included a copperplate engraving of a crowned Circe in loose dress, holding a goblet aloft in her right hand and a long wand in her left. Evidence of such performances during the following decades is provided by several portraits in character, of which one of the earliest was the pastel by Daniel Gardner (1750–1805) of"
"of the music and shout out phrases to the performers. Pantomime has a long theatrical history in Western culture dating back to classical theatre. It developed partly from the 16th century commedia dell'arte tradition of Italy and other European and British stage traditions, such as 17th-century masques and music hall. An important part of the pantomime, until the late 19th century, was the harlequinade. Outside Britain, the word ""pantomime"" is often understood to mean miming, rather than the theatrical form discussed here. The word pantomime was adopted from the Latin word ""pantomimus"", which in turn derives from the Greek word"