Excerpt from Famous Actor-Families in America Drury Lane in 1762. In the history of the American stage, nearly all programmes of an early date con tained special notices that no persons whatsoever were to be admitted behind the scenes. At first this prohibition resulted in great disfavor and in open opposal, but the managers were generally firm, though conciliatory in their wording of the order: It will be taken as a particular favor, if no gentleman will be offended, and so on. This one point alone is sufficient to support the statement made by Mr. Bronson Howard that much of the abuse of the stage was an outside infusion; that the theatre itself had to push society into the pit in order to continue its work and to obtain proper discipline. A vivid de scription of an early Virginia playhouse is contained in John Esten Cooke's The Virginia Comedians, who acted in the Williamsburg Theatre during 1752. Garrick is likewise responsible for the introduction of footlights in place of the huge chandeliers, usually hung in full view of the audience. In America there are humorous instances of improvised theatre lights, whether by moon or candle. Potatoes were often scooped out to hold the tallow dip. One reads the jubilant announcement of the first limelight, then of the gas, then of the marvellous improvement of the electric spark to ignite the jets simultaneously, then of electricity; and now the footlights, a relic of Garrick's day, are likely to be supplanted by a me chanism that will eliminate any possibility of re flected light. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.