Daly's Theatre

Daly's Theatre, London, in Cranbourn Street, off Leicester Square. This theatre, which had a seating capacity of about 600 in three tiers, was leased to Augustin Daly by George Edwardes, and opened in 1893 with The Taming of the Shrew, Ada Rehan playing Katharina. This was followed by Sheridan Knowles's The Hunchback, with Violet Vanbrugh, and in 1894 by Twelfth Night and As You Like It. In the same year Daly presented Eleonora Duse in the younger Dumas's La Dame aux camélias. Later Edwardes transferred the musical comedy A Gaiety Girl there, Daly withdrawing in 1895. Daly's then became one of the most fashionable and successful theatres in London, its productions including The Geisha (1896), San Toy (1899), A Country Girl (1902), The Merry Widow (1907), and The Dollar Princess (1909). Edwardes's last production there was The Marriage Market (1913). In 1917 Oscar Asche produced The Maid of the Mountains which ran for 1,352 performances; it was followed by A Southern Maid (1920). In 1927 Noël Coward's Sirocco proved a failure, and a number of old musicals were revived with little success. The theatre closed in 1937.