Daly's Theatre
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Daly's Theatre was located in Cranbourn Street, off Leicester Square, London. It opened on 27 June 1893, and was demolished in 1937. It had a seating capacity of about 600 in three tiers.
[edit] The Edwardes years
The theatre was originally built for American producer Augustin Daly by the English theatre manager George Edwardes. The theatre opened with The Taming of the Shrew, with Ada Rehan playing Katharina, in 1893. This was followed by Sheridan Knowles's The Hunchback, with Violet Vanbrugh, and in 1894 by Twelfth Night and As You Like It and the younger Dumas's La Dame aux camélias, with Eleonora Duse. Edwardes then took over management of the theatre himself. Edwardes hired Sidney Jones as the resident composer and music director, and the theatre became well known for a string of highly successful musical comedy productions composed mostly by Jones, many with additional songs by Lionel Monckton.
The shows represented a step forward in the evolution of musical comedy. They had coherent plots and music specifically composed for the plot of each piece. After the first few, they became more like what musical comedy was to become at maturity than their Gaiety Theatre, London siblings, the more review-like "Girl" musicals. The early Daly's Theatre shows, mostly with books by Owen Hall and lyrics by Harry Greenbank and Adrian Ross, included A Gaiety Girl (1894), An Artist's Model (1895), and the three most successful musical comedies of the era: The Geisha (1896), A Greek Slave (1898) and San Toy (1899).
These were followed by A Country Girl (1902) and The Cingalee (1904), with books by James T. Tanner. Edwardes was clever at guaging the changing tastes of his audiences. For a time, he successfully presented English adaptations of continental European operettas, like The Little Michus (1905), Les Merveilleuses (1906), the highly successful The Merry Widow (1907), The Dollar Princess (1909), and The Count of Luxembourg (1911).
Later productions included Betty (1915).
[edit] After Edwardes
Edwardes died in 1915, leaving his estate in considerable debt. The theatre continued to be managed by Robert Evett as part of Edwardes's estate. Evett directed and produced The Happy Day (1916) and the smash hit, The Maid of the Mountains (1917), starring José Collins. The show ran for a record-breaking three years and saved the Edwardes estate. This was followed by A Southern Maid (1917; revived 1920) and Our Peg (later adapted into Our Nell). He also directed revivals of The Dollar Princess.
Later, other managements took over the theatre. In 1927, Noel Coward's famous flop Sirocco played at Daly's. After this failure, Daly's returned to musical comedies but found little further success. The theatre eventually closed and was demolished in 1937 and was replaced by a large Warner Cinema.
