@chelseaphillips
Spanish Tragedy evangelist | dramaturg, assc prof, theatre historian (18thc, celebrity, & Shakespeare) | 📚Carrying All Before Her (2022) | opinions mine https://spanishtragedy.villanova.edu https://udpress.udel.edu/book-title/carrying-all-before-her/
Poetry so bad it drove me back to social media:
“Renown shews her Helen in dingy tradition
And Hebe retreats, to avoid competition” (xi)
“When the insincere praise, Desolation must follow;
As Serpents pre-slaver that victim they’d swallow.” (xiii)
In case this is useful information to anyone I know, the American Musical Theater Archives youtube channel has a huge assortment of clips and entire shows from American Musical Theater (back to Gold Diggers of 1929!).
First Preview tonight is already SOLD OUT!
We open May 3rd, and run through May 18th. Act fast to get your tickets now!
www.philartistscollective.org/cato.html
On Wednesday, I'll be at the Museum of the American Revolution in Philly with a bunch of awesome people to discuss CATO, an eighteenth-century play woven into the fabric of our early republic. Come join us! @r18collective.bsky.social
www.amrevmuseum.org/events/amrev...
Don’t threaten me with a good time
Fluffy yellow and orange daffodils
Blue star-shaped flowers
Blown tulips in a dusty pink color
Longwood Gardens—particularly taken with the blown tulips straight out of a Dutch still life!
My kid is 3 and already his first question every morning is “is it Friday?”
So so fair 😂😂 terrible husband, satisfying comeuppance
Genius idea—would love to come hate on Theophilus Cibber.
The coolest thing I’ve seen today is that a bunch of volunteer public health professionals and developers have restored the CDC website from before January 20th 2025.
This differs from an archive in that they want to rebuild the links between pages and replicate the full website.
😂😂
Tra-lil my hearts! It’s pancake day. Ring ‘em (pancake bells) if ya got ‘em.
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Something we can do. A little goes further than you might think: mutualaidsudan.org
"from half past two to half past four I sit in state—the remainder of the day has so much the reverse of dignity that retirement and concealment is requested for my friends’ convenience as well as for my own."
--Elizabeth Inchbald, introverted queen
Playwright Frederick Reynolds, published 1826.
The playwright Frederick Reynolds. The stories date from the late 1780s, but the book was published 1826.
That it made so sense for an Imam in 1068 to sing a song about peppermint drops and the Bank of England.
I'm crying. I love theatre, it's the best.
Absolute chaos of stories in this memoir--
1) actor didn't have enough plates to break in a scene and so snatched the wig off his scene partner and threw it into the air.
2) another actor swapped an unpopular song last minute for an alternative, not realizing....
Reynolds' favorite punctuation mark was the comma.
“Drury Lane, and Covent Garden, were almost forgotten in the performances at Richmond House; and...were considered, by crowded, and fashionable audiences, equal, if not superior, to Kemble, Lewis, Mrs. Siddons, and the present Countess of Derby.”
Black and white engraving of the 18th c English politician William Pitt. Who appears to have been hot.
Why could young William Pitt get it, and why am I just learning this?
Because I get all my information from satirical prints.
At the Folger today, so watch this space for a scrolling break.
First up, politician John Wilkes' self-own, as recounted by playwright Frederick Reynolds:
“That he required a fortnight to talk away his face” (qtd 20)--apparently didn't stop his popularity with the ladies, however.
Historian snark to lighten your timeline:
“Mrs. Wells of Covent Garden was always always in the news. She was certainly better known to readers of newspapers than any other performer, for there was hardly a day they were not called upon to weep over her latest misfortune.”
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Just me or is Die Hard more of a Christmas Movie than The Family Stone?
Staged reading of Sir Anthony Love tonight with the fine folks of Philadelphia Artists’ Collective💙💙💙
Three years ago I was having the best shower of my entire life post giving birth. It was so good. Also happy birthday to our little delight.
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This is very helpful! Thank you for doing this and sharing so generously. 📌
Thought of you immediately, obviously